No Such Thing As Werewolves

by Chris Fox

  He handed the shotgun to Blair, who planted the butt against his shoulder and aimed at the target again. “It’s much lighter than the .338. This is definitely the one that feels most natural so far.”

  “If you had to get good with one rifle, this would be my recommendation. You can find ammo just about anywhere, and the learning curve isn’t very steep,” Trevor explained. He picked up a revolver from the table. “If you need something smaller, this is the pistol of choice. It’s a .357, the little brother to the gun Dirty Harry used. The ammo is also easy to find, and it’s very much point and shoot. It’s got a kick, but it’s manageable. It will core a man, though it won’t knock him from his feet. You’d want the forty-five for that.” He handed the pistol to Blair, who traded him back the shotgun.

  “So what would you use if you had to pick?” Blair asked. Why did an astronomer need so many guns? Trevor was such a mass of contradictions.

  “If I’m in close quarters, I want to knock an opponent down, so I’d use a forty-five. That gives me the time to line up a kill shot,” Trevor explained matter-of-factly, as if he’d already given this a lot of thought. “For a rifle, I’d keep the .338. It requires more skill than a shotgun, but it’s got much better range, and you can still use it up close if you’re good. There is a more powerful rifle, but I haven’t gotten it out. It’s a Barrett fifty-caliber sniper rifle. You can core a tank from over a mile, but the gun weighs almost forty pounds. It’s bulky and difficult to move and set up. Definitely not something I’d want to travel with, but if I was fighting a foe with superior firepower, that’s the gun I’d want. Of course, the rounds are five bucks a pop, so if they didn’t kill me, the bill probably would.”

  The door leading to the house swung open, revealing Liz in a blue blouse and a tight pair of jeans. Blair had no idea when Trevor had found the time to fix the door. He’d cleaned up the plaster as well, though the ceiling still bore the scars of the werewolf attack.

  “I’ve taken a dose of the silver nitrate. It made me feel queasy for a minute, but other than that I haven’t noticed anything,” Liz said as she entered the garage. Blair tried not to stare at the curves the blouse hinted at. “Have you heard back from your friend with the plane? The sooner we leave, the better. I just finished watching footage of a werewolf tearing up a theater in La Jolla. They’re talking about martial law.”

  “Not yet,” Trevor replied, setting the shotgun back on the table and gesturing for Blair to hand him the .357. “He’ll get back to us by the tomorrow morning, I’m sure. I doubt he’ll have an issue with—“

  Blair stopped listening. He heard something in the distance. An all-too-familiar whup-whup-whup that brought him back to Peru. “There’s a helicopter approaching.”

  “I wouldn’t worry much about it. We’re pretty close to the flight path between downtown San Diego and Los Angeles. Military helicopters go by all the time,” Trevor said, turning his attention back to the guns. “I’ve got a few more weapons to show you. Then we can get packed up.”

  “Wait,” Blair said, straining to identify what he was hearing. “There’s more than one helicopter. Maybe three of four. They’re coming from different directions.”

  “Should we lock ourselves in the gun safe?” Liz asked, gripping Blair’s arm.

  “No, we’d be trapped. It’s the first place Mohn would look,” Trevor said. He ducked into the gun safe and emerged with a rifle easily as tall as he was. That must be the Barrett. It looked a lot like the .338 but was much larger and made of flat black metal. The barrel and stock were scored in dozens of places. This thing had been around the block. “I’m going to prepare a distraction. Blair, get our stuff into the Rover.”

  “The Rover?” Blair asked, grabbing the shotgun. “Won’t they just gun us down if they have helicopters?”

  “I didn’t say it was a good plan, but if we stay here, the ground team will wipe us out. If we’re lucky, I’ll get a couple shots off with the Barrett to give them something to think about. Liz, can you get out there and scout with that invisibility trick you do? We need to know what we’re dealing with,” Trevor said, strapping an empty holster to his right thigh and sliding the .45 home.

  “All right,” Liz said, peering out the garage’s only window. “It’s dark out there now. I’ll see what I can find. If you guys make a break for it, I’ll link up with you.”

  Blair grabbed several packed duffel bags near the garage door and started stuffing them into the back of the Rover.

  “We’re relying on you, Liz. See if you can identify a leader. Then let us know as soon as possible,” Trevor instructed. The approaching helicopters were deafening.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Liz said. The shadows flowed around her, clinging to her limbs like black tar. Within moments she was just…gone.

  “Blair, follow me into the house, and keep your head down. They let us know they’re coming, so I’m betting they’re coming in hot,” Trevor said, striding up the hallway, toward the kitchen. Blair tossed the last duffel into the Rover and followed.

  Trevor crouched behind the island in the kitchen, keeping the thick counter on one side and the island on the other. Blair dropped down next to him, wondering how much cover that would provide. Better than nothing, he supposed.

  “There will probably be an initial burst of fire to soften us up,” Trevor explained. “Then they’ll deploy tactical teams. We can’t be here when that happens, so as soon as the initial fire ends, you and I bolt through that back door. You got it?”

  “Got it.” Blair shot back. He was damn glad Liz had chosen San Diego. They’d be lost without Trevor.

  “Incoming,” Trevor bellowed.

  Chapter 56- World of Hurt

  The kitchen exploded, windows shattering inward in a deadly hail of glass and wood. Flecks of plaster, bits of tile, and other fragments of Trevor’s life blasted in every direction as bullets screamed by. They were more pressure than actual sound, and sharp pain flared in both ears with every blast. He kept his head down, covering his ears with his hands while he waited for the chaos to end. The whole thing lasted an eternity, though he doubted more than five or six seconds passed between the time the guns began their awful whirring and the time the death stopped.

  His house had been gutted. Every window had been shattered. Fist-sized bullet holes scarred every wall. Stuffing fountained out of several tears in the couch, like tendrils from some cottony octopus. Thousands of hours gone in an eye blink. But he was still alive. If he wanted to stay that way, it was time to move. He used the Savage .338 rifle as a crutch to heave himself to his feet, but he let it clatter to the ground as he sprinted for the gaping hole once occupied by his sliding glass door. It would slow him down too much, and he doubted he’d have time to line up a shot.

  Instead he yanked the H&K .45 from his thigh holster. The soldiers about to invade his house would be wearing Kevlar at the very least, so it wouldn’t kill them. That couldn’t be helped. Nothing he had was going to down them in one shot, but then he didn’t really need to kill them. He just had to knock them down. Blair could handle the rest.

  “Blair, bring your big friend out to play. We’re going to need him,” he shouted, leaping through the wreckage where the doorframe to the back patio had met the walkway circling around the side of the house. He didn’t wait to see if Blair followed. Either he would, or he was dead, werewolf or not. Trevor couldn’t help in either case, so he just kept moving.

  Part of him felt crazy for running into the kitchen and then outside only to loop back toward the garage. He knew it was necessary, though. Mohn would definitely use thermal imaging, so they’d known exactly where in the house to focus their fire. If Trevor and Blair had been in the garage the vehicles would have been jeopardized, and he needed both the Mustang and the Rover if his plan was going to work.

  He ran low along the side of the house, pausing behind the tall wooden fence that separated the walkway from the driveway. It was a good thing. Two soldiers in black bod
y armor were rappelling into the street on the other side. Their lips were moving, but the words were sucked away in the gale created by the helicopters. Both bore combat rifles he wasn’t familiar with. The guns were bulky and resembled MP5s but were sleeker and had slightly longer barrels. The weapons probably contained a lot of stopping power. Exactly the sort of weapon you’d want if fighting a werewolf.

  Trevor dropped a hand to his right thigh, drawing his .45. He moved quietly toward the gate, more from habit than need. If he was quick, he might be able to get the drop on them. He paused when he reached it, peering between two of the slats. The pair of soldiers hustled up the driveway with grim precision, moving swiftly for his position. They didn’t seem aware of his presence.

  He waited until he could hear them on the other side of the gate and then started firing. Four rapid cracks, all at chest level. There was an agonized yell from the other side of the gate. Trevor kicked it open, the heavy wood slamming into the second soldier. It knocked the woman backward and off balance, but she still had time to raise her rifle. It swung into alignment with Trevor’s face.

  Something roared behind him, taxing his already damaged hearing. The soldier’s knee and upper thigh ruptured, spilling her toward Trevor. The woman’s rifle sprayed a trio of rounds into the driveway, spurting concrete shrapnel from the craters they created. Then Trevor’s .45 swung around for an easy shot. He steeled himself, squeezing a round into the back of the woman’s head. He was unprepared for the gore, gagging at the sight. He’d hunted and skinned animals, but this was different. He’d just killed a human being in close quarters.

  Blair’s hulking form emerged from the shadows behind him, eerily silent despite his size. He cradled the shotgun, barrel still leaking a wisp of smoke. His voice was guttural and low. Trevor was terrified, if he was being honest. “There are two more soldiers in the house, and two just entered the backyard. Those two sound strange. Heavier than the others,” Blair said.

  “Great,” Trevor growled, scooping up the soldier’s modified MP5 as he hauled open the garage door. The din swallowed the clatter as the door revealed the inside of the garage. It had been savaged by gunfire, like the rest of the house, but the gun safe had stopped many of the shots.

  The Rover had taken a round through the windshield but looked otherwise untouched. Trevor breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the Mustang, miraculously intact. Two years he’d labored on that thing.

  He darted to the Rover’s rear driver-side door, the sound of the helicopters and gunfire abating slightly as he entered the garage. Trevor holstered his pistol and then tapped the clicker on his keys to unlock the door. He jerked it open, depositing his newly acquired rifle on the floor. It probably still had a full clip, minus the burst into the driveway.

  He glanced at the gun safe. The plan was crazy, but it might work. He turned to the hulking shadow next to him that had entered the garage. “Blair, you need to hold them off for about sixty seconds. Can you do that?” Trevor yelled the words, but he hasn’t sure they were audible over the fight outside.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Blair roared back. The sound came from low in his chest, reverberating through the air around him. His eyes narrowed, and he handed the shotgun to Trevor. “I’ll need my claws for this.”

  “Just keep them off balance for a few seconds. You can pick out the sound of a car engine in all this, right?” Trevor shouted, cupping one hand to his mouth as he set the shotgun in the back of the Rover.

  Blair nodded.

  “Good. When you hear the Mustang start up, get back here as soon as you can. I want you to get into the Rover’s driver seat and haul ass out of here. They can’t find Liz out there, so she’s fine. We, on the other hand, are in a world of hurt.”

  Blair looked confused for a moment as if he wanted to ask why, but he swallowed the words. He glanced up at the night sky where the helicopters lurked. Then he turned back to give Trevor a nod. Good. There wasn’t time to answer questions.

  Then Blair blurred into the darkness, disappearing into the backyard. The gut-thumping sound of automatic fire split the night, bright flashes in the backyard visible through the new holes Mohn had decorated his house with. Trevor slammed the Rover’s door and sprinted for the gun safe. This had better work.

  Chapter 57- On the Hunt

  Liz leapt silently atop a boulder on the hillside behind Trevor’s house, drawing shadow around her like one might clutch a jacket on a cold night. She studied the two men in their bulky midnight armor as they whirred and clicked their way toward the yard. They looked like something out of a Terminator movie, scent and heartbeat both muffled by the metallic shells. Each bore a rifle she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of, but if she played this right, they’d never see her until it was too late.

  Yes, Ka-Ken. Strike and melt into the shadows. Such has always been the way of the wolf.

  The urgent staccato of automatic weapons fire echoed through the valley, no doubt terrifying Trevor’s distant neighbors. Instead of lights going on, though, the few she could see were switching off. People didn’t want to be involved in violence of this scale. She did, however, spy a few people peeking through windows. One more way her new senses could prove useful.

  Focus, Ka-Ken. There is death to attend to. Mother’s will, your pack will be safe. The male is strong, as is your blood kin. They must hold until we can assist them. Kill these two; then go.

  “So you aren’t going to try making me kill them anymore?” Liz asked, low and under her breath. Did she even need to speak? This thing could hear her thoughts.

  No longer, Ka-Ken. You have made your will known. I will acquiesce, though if the energy sickness comes again, your kin will not be safe.

  “I’ll remember that,” she mouthed, making no sound.

  Liz leapt from the rock, bounding silently through the shadows. She avoided the large shrubs or any patch of dirt. The impact could make noise or send up a cloud of dust, betraying her presence even in the darkness. How did she know that?

  We are one, Ka-Ken. I grant the gift of memory. Through me, you bear the wisdom of ages.

  Liz only half-listened, already focused on her target. One of the armored suits crouched in the shadow of a large boulder, mostly invisible except to her eyes. Its rifle was aimed at the house, and two boxy missiles jutted from a box on its left shoulder. She didn’t know what kind of hell they could unleash, but it was best if she never found out.

  Let me guide your hand. Move as I move. I will teach you.

  Liz relinquished control. She would trust the beast, at least until it gave her reason not to. Her body glided forward, circling behind the rock until she was one with its shadow. She lurked mere inches from her prey, yet it was unaware. She uncoiled like a spring, one arm wrapping around the soldier’s neck in an implacable grip. The other splayed her fingers outward, claws aligned like the teeth of some vicious saw. Her hand jabbed forward with incredible strength, piercing the soldier’s armor and driving into his spine just below the neck. Hot, squishy blood covered her fingers.

  Just like that, the soldier was dead. She eased the body noiselessly to the ground as they melted back into the shadows. Liz’s abilities both awed and terrified her. These armored suits were so new she wasn’t even sure the military had them, but she’d dropped one with almost no effort. And there were hundreds of werewolves just like her out there now? It was chilling.

  The other soldier had finally noticed his companion’s body. He paused, scanning the darkness. This one moved more carefully that the last. He seemed aware she was in the shadows somewhere, gaze never resting as he slowly walked the barrel of that massive rifle through her vicinity. Would the same trick work again? One way to find out.

  Liz crept through the shadows, circling the armored soldier. He had his back to a large shrub, legs slightly bent and ready to move. She could still get the drop on him, but the bush would prevent her from attacking him from behind. He’d hear her moving in the bush before she reached him, giving
him a chance to react.

  So a frontal assault, then? She thought. The beast undoubtedly had a plan.

  Of course, Ka-Ken. This one feels our full fury.

  She pounced, leaping thirty feet and coming down atop the armor. Their combined weight flattened the bush and sent them tumbling. Liz recovered first. She flipped up, knees pinning the soldier’s blocky shoulders as her claws wrapped around his helmet. She gave a roar and pulled with every ounce of her new strength. The metal groaned, but it didn’t pull free.

  Then she was tumbling backward as the soldier’s legs wrapped around her neck. He used the incredible strength in his armor to hurl her against a neighboring boulder. The rock shattered, and she dropped to the ground, the wind knocked from her.

  The soldier flipped to his feet, a trio of wicked-looking blades springing from each gauntlet. He lunged forward, stabbing once, twice, a third time into her back. She felt organs rupture. That had been a lung popping. She collapsed to the ground in a shower of blood. Her insides were filled with hot glass.

  Yet the healing had already begun. Liz scythed her legs around, knocking the soldier from his feet. She grabbed his calf, hurling his helmeted head into the same boulder she’d just rebounded off of. The armor gave a shower of sparks, but amazingly it held. Liz lunged forward, seizing him around the chest in a one-armed bear hug. She used the claws on her free hand to pry at the fissure between the helmet and the shoulder. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, she twisted it open to reveal a man in silver sunglasses, with a goatee.