Wolf Asylum
Page 12
“It’s not that I’m stalling—expansion takes time. Until New Haven can be on a paying basis and meet its food needs, the idea of expansion seems foolish. We have great ideas coming online, but reproduction can’t be rushed. I’m also trying to adhere to the principles; we don’t want to kill just anyone. It was you yourself who said sending the good to hell serves no purpose. Well, that’s what we’re trying to do. Our lust for flesh is making that a challenge. Innocence is being killed.”
“The children?” John asked with his odd, little grin emerging again.
Ashamed, Darwin looked to his lap for solace but found none.
“Yeah,” he replied softly.
“Why does it bother you to kill children?”
Darwin replied as though the answer was too obvious. “They can be the only true good, but yet we condemn them as though they are made from the same evils that their parents are.”
“When did you first learn the cruelty of children? You of all people should know that the innocence of youth is a crock. Children are not innocent because they are naïve to the ways of the world. When they attacked you, when they beat you emotionally day after day-do you really think they didn’t experience guilt for their crimes? If they experience guilt, they therefore know the wrong they do, and if they keep at it, then they are not innocent. Lest we forget Teddy?” John humbly replied.
“We’ve killed babies,” Darwin cried. “Our good is insulated with evil.”
“You’ve deactivated human machinery that lacked programming. A heartless way to look at it, but in the end those individuals could have been programmed to be anything to anyone. They are a subspecies, inferior to yourself.” John paused briefly swirling his tea around. “Having said that, why are you experiencing emotions, empathy, to the humans?”
“I don’t know. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to eat a human child, because I have. I want to do it again and again! Yet I feel! I feel remorse in what I do—it’s not consistent, but it’s there. Can you help me?” Darwin asked in frustration.
“You wished to be purged of your remaining human frailties?” John clarified.
“Yes!” Darwin shouted. “It hurts too much! All I think about is the joy and happiness that I never had. I want it to end. I want to forget about my past and see a clear line between the lycans and humans.”
“That’s a tall order my friend,” John quietly asserted.
“It can be done!” Darwin pleaded.
“Can and should—these are the questions. If I were to eliminate your remaining human traits; and don’t misunderstand me, I can do it, but if I did…” John again paused.
“I’d be better for it,” Darwin stated.
“Are you familiar with your history?” John asked in an upbeat tone before hopping up on the altar and sitting next to Darwin.
Darwin knew a little about history, but not as much as he should to declare he knew his history. He shrugged and left his answer at that.
“We have appeared to many over the millenniums. Different cultures and faiths have different names for us. It really doesn’t matter what you call us. For example the Irish call us Leprechauns. Can I look you in the eye and say I’m not a Leprechaun? No…because I am…to the Irish anyways. When I appeared to a young boy in the small town of Gori, Georgia in 1885, he saw me as an angel. The boy had been stricken with small pox which brutally scarred his face. The child was a fighter though, and I saw something in him. For his allegiance, I promised him great power to the end. I held up my end of the bargain and so did he. To this day his people still fear his name.”
“Who was that?” Darwin asked.
“Joseph Stalin. Of course when I met him he had a different name, but that is who he became. We’ve had many like him over the years. Adolf Hitler was probably one of our better achievements for personality turn around. Joseph always had a wicked side to him, but believe it or not Hitler was a kind and sweet child.”
“Hitler lost the war,” Darwin stated, confused. “Why gloat about a loss?”
“Hitler lost to someone who worked for us; it was essentially a win-win. Had Hitler stayed out of Russia, our projections suggest he would have won the European war-but he was a greedy little Austrian. Ultimately our interference destabilized him which led to his downfall.”
“I never wanted to be a tyrant,” Darwin confessed.
“It was the lure of power that corrupted them. I believe Baron Acton was right when he said: ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely’. History rarely recalls any good in a leader if they have done horrific things. You can live out your vision; just don’t let the power overtake you. That will be your undoing.”
“What do I do with the conflict inside of me?”
John jumped off the slab and returned a moment later with the teapot and filled Darwin’s cup without asking. “A little bit of doubt is a good thing, keeps your mind in consideration of the options.”
Darwin asked, “Why is our conversation so clear this time? Normally you’re cryptic and make no sense.”
“Perhaps you weren’t hearing us. Listen to the words, embrace the symbols. Our message is only as cryptic as you allow it to be,” John said.
“Why am I here? If you won’t help make me stronger, then what am I here for?” Darwin took another sip from his tea.
John stated blankly looking to the wall, “Don’t you feel better knowing that I have faith in you? That’s worth something, isn’t it? I can help you, I can raise the alarm when something is wrong, and that’s what I am here to do. Whatever is coming for you, it is a power equal to our own. It is sly and it stalks, yet I can’t detect him.”
“How do you know there’s someone coming?” Is it a group of people, or just one?” Darwin asked.
“Unknown,” John quietly responded. “He’s coming; that’s all I know.”
“How do you know?” Darwin pressed.
“We have a perception that goes beyond the physical world. It’s like seeing a shadow in the corner of your eye. You know it was there, but you can’t prove it.”
“Maybe it is just a shadow? Sometimes we make our own demons”.
“All I can say is, tea-time is over.”
The lights flashed out and Darwin found himself in the darkness. The room was gone and nothing existed. Darwin asked for John, but his request was only greeted with silence. Slowly in the distance, a hazy screen began to come into focus. Darwin squinted and tried to see what was being shown. The static gave way to impairment lines before breaking way to a clear picture.
It was tragically familiar, but yet new.
“Cardwen!” Police Chief Newman shouted. “Darwin wants to see you! You don’t have to run anymore.” He assured, flashing his eyes momentarily, “He knows about you.”
Steve hesitated and started to run a bit. He stopped a few feet later and decided to trust the message. Newman seemed safe; he hadn’t drawn his gun, and he was making no effort to put handcuffs on him. Steve surrendered and climbed into the front seat of the cruiser.
“You made that too easy,” Newman stated as he quickly smothered Steve’s mouth with a rag doused in chloroform.
The TV lost the signal briefly before returning. Now the picture was in the shower at the high school. Steve was naked, hanging by his neck; a stool under his feet with his hands bound behind him. Newman punched Steve in the gut to wake him, but without success. Newman again took a swing at the hanging body; this time for Steve’s testicles. The pain jolted him from his chemical slumber.
Steve’s eyes opened and were full of light.
“My instincts are never wrong! Too bad your faggoty friend will never know. I thought homos just gave each other AIDS. So you infected him with the gift and never told him! Typical queer bent bastard!”
Newman laughed as he pulled out a hunting knife from his beltline. Quickly grabbing Steve’s genitals, Newman severed the sexual member sending a stream of blood across the room and down his leg, then tossed it to the floor. The tiles looked like the c
anvas of some bad abstract art. Steve howled in agony and was changing while hanging from the shower head. Newman took his time and coldly filled a rag with more chloroform.
“You bastard! Arrgh! I will kill you!” Steve uttered from his changing voice.
“I think not my little friend.”
At that moment Newman jammed his palm over Steve’s mouth and asphyxiated the partially transforming young man. Once asleep, Steve began to revert to his human body and Newman kicked the stool out from under his feet as he began to set up the next scene for Darwin’s arrival.
Eyes wide open, Darwin rolled over off the rock he had collided with. His eyes burst open with tears and were full of light. What he had witnessed had been true; he could feel it in his soul. Newman had lied to him.
He could have stopped Steve. Everything from Newman had been a lie. Newman had killed Steve; Newman had learned that Steve was already a werewolf. The man had been full of half truths.
“That son of a bitch!” Darwin yelled at the top of his lungs, crying in anguish throughout the woods. The birds departed the tree branches above in a frenzy to leave Darwin in his emotional well.
Focused on his lost opportunity, all he could see was Newman and the New Haven City Police plotting behind him, running counter to everything that Darwin had wanted.
Darwin’s soul began to bleed and the raging fire in his spirit grew out of control.
The distraught man flipped onto his hands and knees and changed in rage. Darwin tore his clothing from his body and ran into the woods forgetting why he had been there in the first place.
Chapter Fourteen
The owl cocked his head, eyes bulged at the reverting body of Darwin Foster. Rocking and weaving the large bird opened its beak as though a message was about to be conveyed to the woodland critters, but at the last second the owl sealed his bill and shuddered at the sight below.
Darwin opened his eyes as his skin continued to bubble and shrink. He could feel the caldron of hate and anger still stewing just under the surface of his persona. What had triggered his transformation was still there, waiting and lurking, for the right moment to force his change again.
The sun had set and the sky had gone black. Orion was prominent overhead and the stars themselves seemed to swirl uncontrollably, causing the now human stomach to turn and begin to convulse.
On all fours, Darwin’s gut seized and wrenched. The volume of matter in his digestive tract began to reverse directions but it was deep inside and slow to move. Darwin’s mouth opened in anticipation of the expulsion of acid and partially digested comfort foods. Like mercury climbing in a thermometer, the acid seared the lining of his esophagus bringing about instant heart burn. His fingertips clawed at the soil and his toes anchored in place, bracing for eruption which was now flowing into his mouth like the first wave of a tsunami.
With his stomach completely twisted, the pressure burst the meat dam lodged within his throat. A stream of chunky flesh-bits and sour fluid was strewn across the ground in three distinct ejections with only a brief rest in between.
Darwin’s body remained frozen in place, every muscle arrested as the dry heaves commenced. With each phantom wave and contraction, Darwin wished and prayed something would exit his mouth but nothing more did. After a series of false alarms, his nausea ended and he slowly lowered his head to the soil to rest. The smell of bile curdled the air.
The heat from his body remained strong even in the chill of the night. He felt different than any other time he had changed. Now he was tired, emotionally and physically. He had slipped into a black hole of rage and everything around him had vanished. He barely remembered transforming.
This had been a new experience; unrestricted ire that had engulfed him in seconds. He had lost control. Only one other time had he changed from anger; the incident in December with Jesús and the drug dealers. In that moment he was angry but had a purpose in his rage.
During the full moon, Darwin had no control over the change but the euphoria of the transformation eliminated any will to resist. Jesús had been different. The pain had brought on the change in combination with his anger. His mind ached for the transformation; he needed to kill.
Newman Induced Excited Delirium—that’s what flowed through Darwin’s mind as he lay on the earth venting his body heat to the blackness of the eve. Now Darwin knew it was possible to lose control in a way that felt a bit like a curse. The change had to run its course; there was no controlling the wolf or its actions.
He had killed, that much was certain. It was too dark to examine the vomit but he knew by the feel of what had passed through his mouth that he had consumed a quantity of meat. What kind of meat was a bit of a mystery but he was fairly sure it had been animals. He was still spitting up small hairs and bone fragments from his mouth.
“I never puke. What the fuck?” he croaked.
Sitting up, Darwin began to feel his disorientation pass. His blood still boiled and he could feel the wolf just under his skin, ready and waiting to burst through again. Emotionally on edge, Darwin attempted to keep his mind from the images he had seen, the truth that had set him off in the first place. He restrained himself from drifting down memory lane, but it was difficult. Darwin didn’t want to change again, a first, but he was lost.
Steve had been a werewolf and had most likely made Darwin. In his heart he wanted that to be true. Steve’s gift now flowed through his veins; how it got there, who could say?
A frigid chill rippled across his bare skin the moment he recalled why he had been in the forest in the first place.
“Mary!” he shouted from his resting position on the ground. The answer he was greeted with was only silence of the night. Not a cricket, owl, or a gentle flow of wind…the woods were simply dead.
Darwin hopped to his feet, sniffing the air filtering through the aromas. The blood on his own face helped to trick his senses. He found no trace of human blood though, a smell he was well acquainted with. Mary reminded him of a candy store, sweet and pungent with cherry and bubble gum hovering overtop of the chocolate. It was pleasant and hypnotic, the kind of odor you could sit and smell all day and never get tired of. Her smell was a combination of pheromones and good hygiene that had possessed Darwin early on. He was never sure if anyone else could smell the sweet candy, but then he had never really been concerned about it, either.
One thing was clear; the candy shop was now closed. The smell of bed sores and fecal encrusted garments radiated throughout the woods. The woods were now sour.
“Mary!” Darwin hollered again, his voice consumed by the sleeping woods. Darwin took another light whiff of the air searching for a trace of what he was looking for. A short, intense inhale of the air brought a quick snapshot of the scents present. A long draw in of air only confused the senses by bringing in more of the less prominent smells.
“Sulphur,” Darwin uttered to himself. He was close to the springs which they had been on their way to when he fell into the abyss. No other smell was present; at least nothing to latch on to. For a moment he thought he smelt a jawbreaker, but only for a moment.
Darwin began running through the trees, still in his primal wear with an edge of wolf to his prowl. He continued to take quick snappy whiffs of air as he moved with a light growl in his throat. It was a struggle not to change with his fury hovering just under his human façade. If he wasn’t worried about his control, he might have allowed himself to do what came naturally.
He might harm Mary. On top of that, he may have already harmed her but he was more certain he hadn’t. She knew nothing about Darwin and he didn’t want her first experience with the wolf to be frightening. If he found her he would tell her right away what happened and who he was…he owed her that much.
When Darwin arrived at the springs there was no trace of her or anyone. The water steamed as it always had. Mary was not there; no clothes, shoes or even a foot print. It looked as though Mary had never made it to the springs.
Darwin swatted a black fly a
ttempting to take a chunk out of his flesh. The agile insect darted away from Darwin and then dived back for another assault, too fast for even Darwin to crush with his lycanthropic skills. A second, and then third fly joined in on the bombardment distracting Darwin long enough for a blitzkrieg of smaller insects to begin the attack on his lower regions.
He spun and swatted, growing angrier with each passing second. The only solace he could find was in the warm mineral waters that glowed in the darkness. Giving in, he allowed his body to fall limply into the pool, submersing most of his exposed body from the preying bugs.
Drifting in the water Darwin looked up into the sky through the tree tops. Orion’s busty belt was still clear along with a couple of unidentified flying objects, probably satellites. With only his face exposed to the air the flies remained at bay. Between the heat of the water and the smell of the sulphur they chose to remain outside the biosphere of the spring.
With his ears submerged, Darwin listened to the drowned out world through the trickle of hot water that poured from a crack in the rock-face that bordered the pool. Every few moments a breeze would create a momentary rift, cooling his face and allowing the enemy combatants a window to make their assault, but soon the dome of heat would reassert itself and the bugs would be forced into retreat.
The night was long and Darwin knew he should return to New Haven as soon as possible, but the longer he remained in the water the more soothed and enervated he became. The weight of the water began to restrain his body, zapping the power from his limbs and closing his windows on the world. Rapidly he shut down and he was soon asleep in a universe that no longer made any sense.
“Are you packed?” a voice asked from the other room. “We’re going to miss our plane!”
“Just a minute…I’m looking for something!” Darwin replied with annoyance on his tongue. Darwin was watching himself search the kitchen for something. He was having an out of body experience. Hovering nearby, he kept an intrigued eye on his own actions but was finding it difficult to stay focused.