Night Creatures Short Stories

by Lori Handeland

  The building was surrounded by thickset evergreens, not untypical in this part of the country. Smaller towns were often the remnants of lumber camps, which by definition had sprung up in the middle of huge forests. Huge forests were where the wolves lived, which often meant no one noticed the beasts were becoming more numerous, more aggressive and a helluva lot smarter until it was too late.

  The parking lot was full of cars, but there was no one at the reception desk to greet us. Which was just plain weird. Places like this always had a receptionist, if not a security guard or two.

  “Hello?” Will called.

  No one answered.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “A little help here?”

  Still nothing.

  We frowned at each other, and I jerked my chin to the right, indicating Will should go one way. I went the other.

  Only offices were down my corridor—empty ones. I guess that made sense. The patients shouldn’t be easily accessible to anyone walking in off the street. The patients should also not be able to walk right out the front entrance, although I was starting to wonder if they had.

  I glanced back at Will. He’d reached the end of his corridor. He lifted his hands, then

  lowered them. Nothing on his side either.

  We met again at the receptionist desk.

  “What do you think?” I asked, staring at the glass door straight ahead.

  The thing had a huge lock that appeared to need both a key card and a code to open. The glass was tinted. We couldn’t see in. I wondered if they could see out. If they were even in there.

  “Doesn’t hurt to try.” Will skirted the reception desk and bent over, peering closely at the security box. “I think I can probably figure this out.” He straightened. “I’ll need my computer.”

  “How about I just break the glass.”

  He tapped his knuckle against it. “Appears a little bulletproof.”

  I frowned. “Why on earth would they have tinted, bulletproof glass in a clinic in Tiny

  Town, USA?”

  “I have a feeling they don’t want what’s on the other side to get out.”

  “Or maybe they don’t want any of us to get in.” My fingers itched. “That just makes

  me want to.”

  Will grinned and ran his hand over my hair. “One of the things I love about you.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I still wasn’t used to his easy and numerous declarations of love. Maybe

  someday I would be, but I doubted it. I’d never been loved before, and I knew instinctively I never would be again in the same way that Will loved me.

  “Why don’t you get your computer?” I asked. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Sure.” Leaning over, he brushed his lips across mine. He did that a lot, too. In our business, we never knew when simple chores, such as going to get the computer out of the car, might separate us forever.

  With Will gone I got antsy. I’d never been very good at waiting, was even less adept at keeping my hands to myself.

  I looked through the papers on the desk and found nothing interesting. Schedules, insurance info, nothing about boxenwolves anywhere. A few taps at the computer keyboard did not bring the screen to life. I decided to leave that for Will.

  I wandered back to the door, shrugged and tried the knob. It twisted in my hand.

  “Oh-oh,” I murmured, and set my free hand on my gun.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped, then scowled at Will. “What did I tell you about sneaking up on me? Make

  some noise like normal people do.”

  “Normal white people. Indians move like the wind.”

  I snorted. “Okay. We forgot the first rule of breaking and entering.”

  “Which is?”

  “Try the knob first.” I pushed, and the door swung all the way open.

  The corridor beyond was brilliantly white and very empty. Every door gaped wide. I

  really didn’t like this. Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and said, “Let’s go.”

  Will set his computer under the receptionist’s desk and followed.

  I drew my weapon. Who knows how fast whatever we might encounter back here

  could move?

  Will left his weapon in its holster. He’d never been very good with it. He was much better at hand to hand.

  As we moved down the corridor, every room not only appeared empty, but upon

  further checking turned out to be empty.

  “Maybe everyone got better,” Will murmured.

  “Then where are the doctors, the nurses, the janitors? Whose cars are those in the

  lot?” “Got me.”

  I liked things less and less the longer we were there. Each room had been lived in, if you could call being incarcerated in the equivalent of a padded room “living.” There’d been people here, not too long ago. But where had they gone?

  Chapter 4

  “There has to be a security office somewhere.”

  I pointed to the camera in the corner of the hallway. The red light was on. Tape was rolling.

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

  “To keep track of patient care, or lack thereof. But there has to be a place where all of this is coordinated. Let’s find it.”

  We’d checked every room, every closet, every nook and cranny on the main floor. So when I opened a door that led into the basement, I started down the steps without hesitation. “Hold on.” Will laid a hand on my shoulder. “Do you watch scary movies?”

  I glanced up at him. The bright light from the hall flared around his head, casting his pretty face in shadow. “Why on earth would I watch horror flicks when my life is one long script for one?”

  “Let me help you out. Never go in the basement. It’s a number one rule for stupid

  heroines everywhere.”

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

  “I’ve got a gun.” I lifted my hand.

  “You always do. How many times has a gun been useless against whatever we run

  into on any given day?”

  More than I cared for. Still—

  “We can’t just leave. You want to tell Edward we were too scared to go in the

  basement?” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “No.”

  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 a bit disturbing. But what had

  I expected to find in the basement of a hospital? Cobwebs dust and rats?

  Pretty much.

  I reached the bottom of the steps. Everything down here was painted white, too— floor, ceiling, walls, doors. There were two. I opened the first, leading with my gun. The lack of light after so much of it made me blink. Nothing jumped out at me. All I heard was the low rumble of machinery.

  “Furnace,” Will said.

  The second door revealed what we’d been looking for—the security office. Also darkened so the screens were easy to see, the place was empty as the rest of the building.

  Will and I crept in. The echoing silence and shadowy atmosphere made me want to

  walk lightly and whisper. I guess that wasn’t a bad thing.

  “Check all the screens,” I said quietly.

  My unease increased at my first glance. While we’d been inside, dusk had fallen. If I

  hadn’t been so worried about the emptiness of the place, I’d have been more worried about that. Bad things happened after the sun went down.

  “If we don’t find anything,” I continued, “you can try and 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 find the camera we needed. There was only one scr
een that showed any kind of movement.

  “Hell,” I muttered and Will left his side to crowd into mine.

  The camera had been mounted on the rear wall of the hospital. For whatever reason, it was focused on the forest. I suspect if any security issues were going to approach from that direction, they’d come out of the trees. I’d also suspect that any escaped prisoners—uh, I mean patients—would head directly for the woods.

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

  “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 on me to kill them all. Who would have thought we’d be attacked by a herd? I should have. It had happened before.

  I squinted, inching my face closer to the screen in a vain attempt to see their eyes. Were they wolves, werewolves or something completely new and different?

  I couldn’t tell. I’d have to get closer.

  Chapter 5

  “Let’s go,” I said, backing away from the screens.

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

  “Do I ever?”

  He sighed, but he followed me. He always did.

  Out of the security office, up the steps, down the hall to 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 back entrance to the clinic where a bank of windows overlooked

  the trees. I glanced out and murmured, “Too late.” The wolves were there, dozens of them. Darkness threatened, but there was enough

  light left for me to determine their eyes 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. 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. As one they 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 creeped me out. They were like computerized versions of wolves on a movie screen—one wolf cloned over and over and over. If it weren’t for their physical differences—fur of brown, black, ash, white, auburn—I would think they were

  clones, which would be another problem entirely.

  The wolves neared the clinic and Will tensed.

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

  Doors were a problem for the quadrapedal. Thank God.

  “I don’t think 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 what they did. They’re werewolves.”

  “Are they?”

  Before I could stop him—he’d always been quicker than spit—he 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 to silver touching 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 put 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 kept walking.

  I shoved him. “Hold on a second.”

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

  “Damn.” I shook my head, then was sorry I had when pain rocketed through my eye sockets and settled in my back teeth. “Every freaking time that happens, it hurts.”

  “You okay?”

  Will stood over me, concern in his eyes. But he’d seen me get smacked often enough to know it only hurt more if he fussed over me.

  “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 still shuffling, mumbling mass of patients. “Strength like that isn’t quite human.”

  “So what are they?” I asked.

  “I think they’re boxenwolves.”

  I wanted to say “no shit,” but I figured that was as annoying to Will as his saying “I told you so,” was to me.

  The residents moved into what I assumed were their rooms. I went to a doorway and watched as an elderly woman methodically put on her patient gown and climbed into bed. Closing her eyes, she went immediately to sleep.

  I looked around for Will. He stood at the next-door down. “Asleep?”

  He nodded.

  I went into the room and tapped the woman on the shoulder. “Ma’am?”

  Slowly she opened her eyes. “Hello? Are you the new nurse?”

  “No. I’m … Jessie. I’ve come to visit.”

  “How nice.” She smiled sleepily.

  Huh. 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 drifted back to sleep.

  In my experience the crazy always seemed very crazy, especially when they were

  psychotic murdering werewolves. But that was my experience and not hers.

  I returned to the hall where Will waited.

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

  Elise was Edward’s right hand woman, a scientist who knew quite a bit about what

  made werewolves tick.

  I pressed the speed dial, and a voice came out of the shadows, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Chapter 6

  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 can’t quite say. 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. “All of the above.”

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

  “My a
ncestors squirrled away quite a bit of money.”

  “Lucky you.”

  I didn’t like him, and I wasn’t sure why. But I had learned to trust my instincts, so 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,” he answered. “And you are?”

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

  “We’re with 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 are 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.”

  “You saw the wolves,” I murmured.

  “I created them.”

  “Who are you?” I repeated. “And I don’t mean your name. I want to know what

  you’re up to here and why? How do you know about boxenwolves?”

  “And just what in hell are boxenwolves?” Will added.

  “What he said.”

  “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?”

  “Yeah.” It had fooled everyone else.

  Zachau shook his head, and his 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.”

  “Everyone wants to be related to a psychopath.”