by Jeff Strand
Clang! Clang! Clang!
George cursed under his breath. Ivan kicked at the bars of his cage once more, and then smiled at the sound of the woman's gasp. "My name is Ivan. Lou is driving. You're sitting on George's lap. They're driving me to my death. Because you know this, I assume you have to die, too."
George pointed a warning finger at him. "Shut up."
"Oh, I'm done. No, wait, I missed the part about you thinking I'm a werewolf."
"I said, shut up."
"What are you going to do, come back here and beat me up in front of a witness? That doesn't seem very smart. When you kill her, are you going to snap her neck quickly or drag her death out, slowly?"
"One more time--"
"I think you should drag it out slowly."
"Enough!" George shouted. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to get rid of the sudden migraine. He hadn't had one of those in over a year, and he'd been in a lot of stressful situations in the past year.
"Don't take it out on me," said Ivan. "I'm not the one who let her into the car, Mr. Intellect."
George took a deep breath, willing himself to remain calm. The situation was screwed up enough already without him letting Ivan send him into a rage. He had to ignore the werewolf, keep himself from losing his mind, assure the woman that she was in no danger, and think this whole thing through.
They drove in silence for a few seconds. The woman looked as if she wanted to lunge for the door handle. They'd almost definitely let her go free fairly soon, hopefully outside of a hospital, but George couldn't have her making any wild escape attempts until this was all figured out. He reached over and locked the door.
"So what now?" she asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Questioning What The Hell Just Happened
"How's your shoulder?" George asked.
"It's fine," the woman insisted. "Just let me go, okay? I won't say anything, I promise."
"What's your name?"
"Seriously, who am I going to tell? You saved my life. I wouldn't turn you in."
"Ma'am, just tell me your name."
She hesitated. "Michele." The way she said it, George thought she might be giving him a fake name, but that didn't matter--he just needed something to call her.
"Michele, we're not going to hurt you. We're FBI agents, and the man behind us is a federal prisoner. We're just transporting him to a maximum security facility."
"The FBI doesn't transport people in cages."
"Okay, look, forget about the guy in the cage for a minute. We're not going to hurt you, and we're not kidnapping you. We're going to take you to a hospital."
"If you're not kidnapping me, then let me go."
George's headache got even more intense. "Fine. We're kidnapping you for now. But we're not going to hurt you."
"You'll be locked in here with me pretty soon," Ivan said. "Assuming they decide it's okay for you to live."
"Can we muzzle him?" Lou asked.
"No! That's exactly what he wants us to try to do! Let's just get situated and figure this out." George gently slid Michele off his lap, putting her between him and Lou. Though he liked having cute young women on his lap, now wasn't the time. It was a tight, uncomfortable fit on the seat with them squished together, but he didn't plan to keep her around for much longer.
"Are you going to bleed to death?" George asked.
Michele shook her head. The shoulder of her shirt was soaked with blood, but though the wound was grisly, it didn't seem to be that deep. "If you're going to force me to ride with you, do you at least have some Band-Aids?"
"Yeah, we've got some stuff. If you reach behind the seat there's a brown suitcase." George pressed his wrist against his pants as Michele reached back and got his bag. He ran the index finger of his other hand over his chest. The bite wasn't too bad, and the lines where the dog's nails had raked across his chest felt more like scrapes than gashes. The traces of gasoline didn't exactly feel pleasant on his wounds, but he was a tough guy, he could handle it. George gestured to the upcoming exit. "Go ahead and get back on Tamiami Trail for now."
Lou nodded and took the exit.
George opened the suitcase, dug through his dirty clothes, and took out the first aid kit. He handed the suitcase back to Michele and she returned it to its spot behind the seat. The first aid kit was fairly small, but it had enough supplies to take care of various on-the-job injuries one might sustain when one's job involved dealing with unsavory and occasionally violent individuals. George took out a handful of bandages, gave half to Michele, and they began to tend to their wounds.
There were so many things to discuss, George wasn't sure where even to begin, so he started with the first one that popped into his mind: "Lou, why the hell did you shoot when I told you not to?"
"Because you had a great big dog trying to rip your guts out."
"What if there'd been a spark?"
"Dogs don't produce sparks when bullets go in them."
"What if you'd missed?"
"I wasn't gonna miss."
"Lou, you're a shit shot!"
"Watch your mouth around a lady. The dog was five feet away. I wasn't gonna miss. I'd rather take the chance of blowing us all up than letting you get eaten. If I hadn't fired the gun, you'd be sitting there with only one arm and one leg whining at me going 'Why didn't you shoot it? Why didn't you shoot it?'"
George considered that for a moment. "Okay, I probably would be. But the next time a flammable substance is all over the ground, don't shoot, got it?"
"Screw you. The next time gas is involved, I'm going to find a frickin' flamethrower."
"Is this really the most important thing you two have to argue about?" Michele asked.
"I'm sorry. Lou, I'm sorry. But when I make an important judgment call like that, it's very frustrating to have you--"
"You can't keep talking after the apology."
George closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead again.
"How are your bites?" Lou asked.
"They're fine. They hurt like hell, but they're fine." He inspected his wrist wound again. It was badly swollen but the flow of blood had almost stopped. Apparently the dog had been polite enough not to sink its teeth into an artery. "I can't believe I killed those dogs. I wouldn't even spank Quincy for going potty off the paper."
"You did what you had to do."
"Did I?"
"Oh, no, no, no, no," said Lou. "If you're going to have a dark night of the soul over those dogs, save it for when I'm not around."
They'd had countless lively debates over the years, but George and Lou rarely bickered like this. Of course, they rarely found themselves in a situation so far out of their control.
"I apologize," said George, wrapping a large bandage around his wrist. "I'm not going to say anything else. And I thank you for shooting the dogs."
"No problem."
George turned his attention to Michele. "Do you know anything about what made those dogs go berserk?"
"I don't have the slightest idea."
"I didn't think so." With Michele on the seat, there really wasn't room for him to turn around to face Ivan, so George adjusted the rear-view mirror to give himself a good look at their captive. "Ivan, what do you know about this?"
"Why, whatever would I know?"
"You can drop the smart-ass tone. Tell me what just happened out there."
"Baffling, wasn't it? All those dogs going nuts. What an odd occurrence. I guess Lou was right, there must have been some sort of problem at a local medical facility, causing a bunch of rabid dogs to escape and go on a rampage. Unfortunate timing for you two, huh? I'm glad I was safely locked in this cage. You should probably report this incident to your superiors."
"Maybe he's right," said Lou.
"He's not right." George tried to look menacing, although that was difficult when he and Ivan were just looking at each other with a tiny mirror. "We get hired to drive a werewolf across the state. That's weird enough. Then we s
top for gas, and every dog in town comes after us--dogs that were not rabid, because some of them had obviously just pulled away from their owners."
Ivan smiled. "A riddle wrapped in a puzzle cloaked in an enigma."
"What do you know about this?"
"Well, George, I suppose the first possibility is that I have friends who train vicious dogs for a living, and that I cleverly surmised that you would need to stop at that particular town to get fuel for your van, after I cleverly surmised that you wouldn't be taking the most efficient route to get from Miami to Tampa. Pretty brilliant of me, although to make this plan truly foolproof I'd need an army of dogs waiting in all of the neighboring towns. Let's stop someplace else for another tank of gas and see if that's the case."
"I want to know how you made that happen."
"It wasn't me. That would lack credibility."
"I'm dead serious, Ivan. How did you make those dogs lose their minds? Or do you just give off some kind of scent or something?"
"I can't believe you're trying to pin this on me. That's as silly as the idea of me being a werewolf."
"Look, asshole, wolves are dogs--"
"Oooooh, look who knows his biology!"
"--and there's no way this is a coincidence."
"Well, then, if it's not a coincidence, I must have the power to control dogs, or at least make them go nuts. Is that what you want to hear?"
"If it's the truth."
Ivan let out a high-pitched, incredulous laugh. "Listen to you! Has the big bad thug-for-hire opened his mind to the possibility of the paranormal?"
"I didn't say that."
"Oh, but two hours ago, if I'd told you that you shouldn't mess with me because I've got the power to send a bunch of killer dogs after you, you would have just made fun of me. You would've been all 'Oh, dude, if you're trying to scare me with your doggie powers, don't do it from inside a cage,' right?"
"You were the one insisting that the whole werewolf thing was ridiculous."
"Yes, but I was the one who had something to lose by being a werewolf. You came at it from neutral ground. Now you're a believer, and all it took were a few nasty dog bites. I'm proud of you, George. This has opened a whole new world of excitement for you."
"I didn't say I was a believer."
"You implied it. That's all I need to declare victory."
George glanced at Michele. "I don't really believe he's a werewolf."
Michele said nothing. She still looked more concerned about being murdered by kidnappers than whether anybody believed in lycanthropes.
"Let's take a vote," said Ivan. "I believe I'm a werewolf. George reluctantly believes I'm a werewolf. What about you, Lou?"
"I believe that you need to stop talking."
"Or what?"
"Or else."
"That's the best you've got? Really? You know what, I'm embarrassed to be your prisoner. Flat-out humiliated. It was cool for a while, when I thought that a couple of scary mob guys had me, but you two buffoons? I might as well be in the hands of the--"
"Enough!"
"Don't you want to know what non-threatening group I was going to compare you to?"
"One more word," said George. "Just one more word, and I will come back there and beat the snot out of you."
"Bet you won't. So what about you, Michele? We've got two votes in favor and one non-committal. Do you think I could possibly be a werewolf?"
"I don't know."
"It's not about what you know, it's about what you think. I'm the only one who knows for certain. So do you think I'm a werewolf?"
"Sure, whatever."
"Three votes in favor. That's a majority, even if Lou changes his cowardly cop-out vote to 'no.' Looks like I'm a fuckin' werewolf with the power of dog control, ladies and gentlemen. Now what are we going to do about that?"
"Not a thing," said George. "The plan stays the same."
"The plan to deliver me to Mr. Dewey in Tampa so I can bite and transform him? Come on, guys, there's no need to be discrete around our new friend Michele, is there? After all, you're planning to kill her."
"Nobody is getting killed."
"Nobody except poor Michele."
"Don't listen to him," George told her.
"Right, don't listen to the guy in the cage," Ivan said. "Clearly there can be no wrongdoing in a situation that involves people in cages. Maybe you'll be lucky and their plans revolve around slavery instead of murder, but either way, I'm not getting a strong 'drop you off at the hospital and everything will be all right' vibe from this, are you?"
"Seriously, don't listen to him," said George. "We're going to let you go."
"Then why haven't you done it already?" Ivan asked. "She asked to be let go as soon as she saw me. True gentlemen would have honored the poor doomed victim's request."
"We've got shit to figure out first."
"Then figure it out. It sounds like I'm the only one trying to figure things out, to be completely honest. Oooooh, I hope if you decide to rape her, you take it outside--there are some things I just don't enjoy watching."
"We should just let her out," said Lou. "She won't tell."
"Of course she won't," said Ivan. "It's not like she's seen anything memorable."
"Get off at the next exit," George told Lou.
"Why?"
"Because we need some answers."
"No, no, this is an 'ignorance is bliss' deal. Let's leave this alone."
"I'm not comfortable with not knowing what's going on when things are this severely screwed up. We left behind a bunch of dead dogs and a dead gas station guy--that'll be on the news. We need a full understanding of what we're dealing with."
"We shouldn't have brought the girl."
"Yeah, I know. We weren't thinking right."
"I never said to bring her in the first place."
"Okay, fine, I wasn't thinking right. The dog teeth in my skin messed with my thought process. Are you happy?"
"Just saying."
"They're going to kiiiiiiiiiilllllllll you," Ivan sang out from the back.
"We should call Ricky, at least," said Lou. "Let him know what happened."
George sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Damn it."
He took out his cell phone and pulled up Ricky The Prick from his "recent contacts" list. Ricky answered on the first ring. "Hiya, sweetie. How's the werewolf doing?"
"He's fine. But we had a pretty big problem."
"Fleas? Hairballs?"
"Ricky, don't make me--"
"All right, all right. Jeez, you sound tense. What's the problem?"
"We stopped to get gas, and about a dozen dogs attacked us. Like they'd gone crazy. One of them bashed itself half to death against the van."
"You for real?"
"Yeah. Lou had to shoot two of them. The guy who worked there, they ripped his goddamn neck open."
"No kidding? He died?"
"Unless you can live with most of your throat gone."
"Wow. I've never seen somebody get mauled to death by dogs before. I mean, I've seen videos, but never in real life. You guys all right?"
"I'm kind of bit up, but I'll be okay."
"You should put some antiseptic on the bites."
"Thanks. I'll do that. Any idea why a bunch of dogs would suddenly attack us like that?"
"Who do you think you're calling, National Geographic? How would I know?"
"We think the werewolf was responsible."
"Uh, by 'werewolf' you mean the guy that nutcase Bateman thinks is a werewolf, right?"
"Yeah, him."
"This is a joke, isn't it? You're trying to get back at me for giving you the crappy werewolf assignment. Y'know, there are a lot of worse places you can be. A guy at a sewage treatment plant isn't paying his protection money. Can you believe that? A sewage treatment plant. How do you get protection money out of them in the first place? The world is crazy. You could be on your way to the turd processing factory right now, so don't--"
"Are you done
?"
"I don't think I was supposed to say anything about the sewage place. Don't tell anybody, okay?"
"Enough, Ricky! We need to know if we should keep going where we're going, or if we should get off the road for a while until things blow over."
"Oh, you should definitely keep going. They want the werewolf this evening at the latest. Where did you say the dogs were?"
"It's a small town called Hachiholata or something like that."
"Can you spell it for me?"
"H-A-C..." George trailed off. "No, I can't spell it for you! Just find it!"
"All right, all right, I'll follow what's going on there. Worst case, we'll try to get you a new van that nobody will be looking for, though I'm not sure we have any people in that area who can make that happen. For now, just assume that everything's cool. I'll call you back."
"Are you going to contact Bateman?"
"Oh, hell no. Just keep going. I'll take care of everything."
"Thanks," said George. He hung up and tucked the cell phone back into his pocket.
"I noticed that you didn't mention your new hostage," said Ivan.
George ignored him. "Still take the next exit," he told Lou.
"Why?"
"Because this wolf is going to talk."
CHAPTER SIX
An Unwise Decision
"That seems like it could turn out bad," said Lou.
"We're not going to let him out of the cage," George insisted. "We're not even going to get close to it. I'm just going to make him talk."
"Why does he need to talk? Why do we need to know anything? I'm perfectly happy not having a clue in the world about what's going on."
"Well, I need some answers. We were not sufficiently briefed before we took this job. There's a big frickin' difference between transporting an annoying guy in a cage and transporting a guy who can command dogs to do his bidding...or, you know, his scent makes them crazy and violent, or whatever it is that he did. If he can mess with animals like that, who knows what else he can do? Maybe he's...I don't know, an abomination or something, and we should destroy him for the good of mankind."