by Jeff Strand
Ivan leapt onto the front hood. Lou scrambled to use his gun, but Ivan lunged forward and plucked it out of his hand. He gave them a fanged grin, and then jumped back onto the roof.
The van bounced up onto the curb and George quickly grabbed the steering wheel again and straightened their course.
"He's got my gun!" Lou shouted.
"Quit saying things that I already know!"
George applied the brakes. "You two, go back and get in the cage. He can't bend the bars or he'd have done it before, so you'll be safe in there!"
"We won't be safe! Now we're up against a werewolf with a gun!"
"You'll be safer than you are now!"
"Everybody just calm down!" Michele brushed some glass out of her hair. They sat in silence for a long, tense moment. "Ivan?"
No response.
"Ivan? It's Michele. I understand that you have a problem with these guys, and that's totally cool, and you're completely justified in anything you want to do to them, but I'm an innocent bystander in this whole thing, so if you could let me go, that would be really nice!"
They waited. Ivan said nothing, and there were no sounds to indicate movement above.
"Ivan? I know you can hear me. I think it's terrible that they locked you in there. It was wrong of them. There's no excuse. If you could just give me some sort of sign that it's okay for me to get out of the van..."
Now there was some movement, the sounds of weight shifting above them. Finally, Ivan spoke: "I just want to be liked, you know?"
George groaned. The werewolf still had the energy to be a smart-ass. This was not good. "Hey, Ivan," he said, "it's crazy for you to stay up on the roof like that. Somebody's going to see and call animal control. You win! You proved that you're far superior, and I look like a total douche. We aren't going to follow you anymore. Just run off and make your escape."
"But, George, you said that the only way this was going to end was with me being delivered to Tampa."
"I misspoke."
"Well, you can't give up yet. I'm not ready for this to be over. I was bored out of my mind for those two hours in a cage, so you owe me at least two hours of entertainment. You know what I should do? I should murder somebody."
He leapt off the roof and onto the street, human now. He turned to look at them, then put a finger to his lips and said "Shhhh. Don't tell."
Then he began to stroll down the sidewalk. Didn't even jog. Didn't look back to see what they were doing.
"I hate that son of a bitch," said George. "I hate him more than I've ever hated another person. Look at that goddamn swagger."
"Shouldn't you be less pissed and more grateful to be alive?" Lou asked.
"I will never stop being pissed. He has now created a 'lifetime of seeking vengeance' scenario."
Ivan stopped at a small brown home. An affordable, practical car was in the driveway, and the front yard was littered with toys. Ivan shrugged--an exaggerated shrug, obviously meant for them to see--and then walked up to the front door.
George's stomach sunk. "Aw, crap. He's really going to do something." He hurriedly got out of the van.
"You're going after him?" Lou asked.
"Of course I'm going after him! Be ready to drive away fast. If you hear sirens, get out of here and don't worry about me. If I don't come out in a few minutes...I don't know, you work it out."
George ran toward the house as Ivan opened the front door and stepped inside.
CHAPTER NINE
Home Invasion
George had always been prone to extreme perspiration, but he couldn't remember ever having been this drenched in sweat. He felt hot and sticky and miserable, he reeked of gasoline, and lots of glass chunks were still stuck to his clothes. The dog bite on his chest stung, and his wrist hurt even worse, and overall this had been one spectacularly crappy day.
He didn't anticipate that it was going to get better in the next few minutes. Revenge or not, he most definitely was not looking forward to going after Ivan without even the safety of being in the van. But he'd be forever haunted if Ivan killed the little kid who owned those toys because of his mistake.
And he did have his gun. Not that bullets had done any good thus far, but it still felt slightly reassuring to have a weapon, even a useless one.
Ivan had left the front door ajar. George pulled it open and stepped inside. The house was messy but not dirty. More toys, mostly action figures, were all over the floor, and a television in the living room blared one of those daytime courtroom shows that George hated in concept but that were surprisingly addictive. The place smelled like air freshener.
A muffled scream.
Gun raised, George ran through the dining room into the kitchen. Ivan had his arm around a blonde in her early thirties, his hand over her mouth and Lou's pistol pressed against the side of her head. Ivan remained fully human, and looked amused by her efforts to struggle.
"Hey, George, look what I caught!" he said with a smile.
George pointed the gun at him. "Let her go."
"Sorry, doesn't scare me at all." Ivan pulled Lou's gun away from the woman's head, removed his hand from her mouth, then bashed her against the counter, hard. He yanked her back to a standing position and put the gun to her head again. "Stop squirming," he told her.
She let out a sob. "Don't hurt me..."
"Stop squirming or I'll smash you against the counter until I break out every tooth in your head."
"C'mon, Ivan, let her go." George tried to keep his voice calm and polite, like a hostage negotiator. "She had nothing to do with this."
"Well, that's part of the fun, isn't it? Innocent people harmed? Collateral damage?" He backed up a few steps, toward the refrigerator and another counter, dragging the woman with him. "I hate guns. Guns are for thugs and cowards." He tossed the gun onto the counter, slid a butcher knife out of a wooden rack, and immediately pressed it against the woman's throat. "Oh, yeah. Much better."
"The cops are on their way," George said.
"Excellent. Maybe I'll kill her and let them find you here with her corpse."
"So what do I need to do to get you to let her go? Just tell me."
"Hmmmmmm." Ivan pretended to consider that. "I'm not sure. This is an interesting new side of you, George. All concerned about innocent women and stuff. If I had time I could probably come up with something, but at the moment, nah, nothing springs to mind. I think I'm going to kill her."
The woman's entire body shook as she sobbed.
"What's your name, sweetie?"
"Diane."
"Diane, huh? I don't see a ring on your finger, Diane. Are you married?"
"No."
"Kids, though, right? How many?"
"Two."
"How old are they?" She didn't answer, so Ivan pressed the blade harder against her neck. "How old are they?" he repeated, almost growling the words.
"Five and seven."
"What are their names?"
George stepped forward. "Ivan, don't--"
"You need to stay exactly where you are and keep your mouth shut!" Ivan lowered his voice and took on a soothing tone as he spoke to Diane. "Ignore the rude man who interrupted our conversation. What are the names of your children?"
"Robin and Gabriel."
"Robin. Girl or boy?"
"Boy."
"Two boys, huh? I bet they're a handful. Where are they now?"
"School."
"Oh, yeah, it's Wednesday, so that makes sense. Silly question. It must be a challenge to raise two young boys on your own. You're not a welfare mother, are you?"
"No."
"Why aren't you at work?"
"Please..."
"Diane, answer my question. Why aren't you at work?"
"I have the day off."
"Okay, fair answer. You figured you'd get in some alone time, run a few errands, clean up the house, and take a mental health day, huh?"
"Yes."
"Things would sure be tough for Robin and Gabriel if the
y didn't have a mother, wouldn't they? I bet they'd cry their little eyes out. I hope you have relatives who would take them in, or else the poor kids may end up bouncing from one foster home to the next. They can't always keep orphaned siblings together, you know. Oh, they try, they give it their best, but there's only so much you can do."
George felt like he was going to vomit. What the hell was he supposed to do? Rush him? Try to shoot him in the face? It was absolutely killing him to stand there helplessly, but what else could he do?
"Hey, George, I'll make you a deal. You throw that gun over here, toss it into the sink, and I'll let her go. I won't even slice off an ear. Maybe I'll slice off part of an ear, but not the full ear, I promise."
"No way."
"Okay, okay, I won't cut off anything. No mutilation. You won't get that offer again, and you've got five seconds to decide."
George put on the safety, then tossed the gun across the kitchen into the sink. Bullets didn't seem to hurt Ivan anyway, so it wasn't as if he was worse off.
"Nice toss," said Ivan. "Just for the record, I wasn't worried about getting shot, but I don't want you squandering bullets and attracting the cops while we're having sooooo much fun."
"I said, the cops are already on their way."
"And I believe you're fibbing. I at least know that you didn't call them. Hey, George, do you know who else in this room likes to lie? I'll give you a clue. It's not the woman."
Oh God...
"That's right. Well, Diane, it's been lovely chatting with you, but now I need to create a couple of orphans."
He slowly slid the blade across her throat. Diane's eyes widened, her legs buckled, and Ivan let her fall to the floor, clutching at her neck and making horrible choking sounds.
"You sick fuck!" George shouted. He took another step forward--he couldn't help himself--and Ivan held up the bloody knife in a defensive position.
"Don't do it, George. You'll get it a lot worse than she did." He crouched down next to her. "See how I didn't cut all that deep? I could've cut all the way to the bone, but then she would've bled out too quickly. This way it lingers a little more." He ran a finger through the gash in her neck and held it up for George's inspection.
"She didn't do anything to you!"
"No, but you did."
Diane's body twitched as the pool of blood on the tile expanded. George had witnessed some terrible things in his life, even a few cold-blooded murders, but those were brutal, emotionless killings designed to punish or send a message. He'd never seen anything like the sense of malicious glee that was on Ivan's face right now. The guy couldn't be happier if he were a ten-year-old at an amusement park.
Diane coughed, sending blood trickling down both sides of her mouth.
Ivan held the butcher knife over her, moving it back and forth. "I think I should stab her again. What do you think, George?"
"If you do, I'll kill you."
Ivan shrugged. "Eh, empty threat." He stood up and picked George's gun out of the sink, then pointed it at him. "I don't want to shoot you. You won't be much fun if I do." He crouched back down next to Diane. "Wow, lots of blood in the human body, huh? You don't think there's that much just looking at somebody, but we leak pretty good."
George forced himself not to scream in rage. "You've made your point."
"Oh, I'm so far from having made my point that it isn't even funny." Ivan slammed the knife into Diane's stomach, burying it all the way to the hilt. Most of her strength was gone by this point, but she still let out a gasp of pain through the gurgling blood. He wrenched the knife out of her, considered his next target for a moment, then slammed the knife deep into her thigh.
George clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails dug into the skin.
"Pretty frustrated, aren't you?" Ivan asked, yanking the blade out of her leg. "I would be too, in your shitty situation. You should beg me to let her go. That would be pretty entertaining, since she's basically dead at this point."
Ivan stabbed her five more times, running the length of her body, each thunk making George cringe. Then Ivan stood up and rolled her onto her back with his foot. Diane lay splayed out on the kitchen floor, eyes open, unquestionably dead.
"You're pathetic," said George, his mouth completely dry.
"Pathetic? That's the adjective you're going to throw out? Pathetic? You had to stand there and watch me murder a mother of two. Your best buddy apparently isn't even going to check on you. George, dude, at this particular moment, I am most definitely not the one who's pathetic."
"Then why don't you come after me, instead of an innocent woman?"
"It's not an either/or deal. I can do both."
That comment scared George a lot more than he wanted to admit, but he stood firm and held up his fists. "Then let's do it."
"No rush, no rush." Ivan put a hand to his ear. "Hear that? No sirens. Amazing what you can get away with during a weekday, isn't it? Let me tell you a little about me. Secret origins kind of stuff. I love to kill people. Absolutely love it. Always have. It's the usual serial killer deal--I caught a frog when I was in grade school, and spent the afternoon playing around with it, putting it in a Lego maze and that kind of thing. Tried to make it eat a grasshopper. Great afternoon. Then my mom called me in for dinner, and I knew she wouldn't let me bring the frog inside, so I was going to let it go, but instead I took out my pocketknife and cut off its arms and legs. Frogs are a bitch to hold down while you're doing that. Loved watching it writhe. I spent the whole meal wondering how my poor dismembered frog was doing, and I didn't even have dessert. That's right, hot fudge sundaes on the table and all I cared about was that frog."
George wiped some sweat from his forehead. He'd really hoped that Lou would come in, guns blazing, even though Lou didn't currently have a gun. His partner had to be doing something, right?
"I went back outside, looked in the shoebox where I'd left that frog, and he was still alive. Oh, he wasn't doing much, just sort of opening and closing his mouth, but he was alive. So I dissected him. I couldn't tell you what the frog parts were called or what their biological functions were, but I saw all of them."
"Am I supposed to respect this?" George asked.
"I don't care if you respect it or it disgusts you or gives you a big fat boner. I just want you to listen. I killed a lot more frogs after that. I mean a lot more. If the Supreme Being turns out to be a frog, I am more fucked than Hitler. From there I moved up to mammals. Mammals were even more fun. Bagged my first human when I was twenty-one. A hooker. I wish I'd been more inventive, but no, it was the typical 'crack whore who won't be missed' scenario. Wanna know how I did it?"
"Actually, I don't."
"Oh, come on."
"How did you do it?"
"Blowtorch. It's extremely inefficient."
"So how many people have you killed?"
"Americans, not that many, probably not even a dozen. But I spent some time in Africa, and, oh, I racked up a body count there. Same thing in Mexico. You go to the poor parts of the world, and you can live like a king and slaughter like a dictator. It's pretty fantastic."
"Yeah."
"I love how you're reduced to saying things like 'Yeah.' Very weak. Question, would it weird you out if I started licking up Diane's blood? Because I don't want to be nasty or anything, but it's smelling really good to me right now, and I'd love to just bury my face in her neck and slurp away."
"Don't let me stop you."
"I probably shouldn't indulge. You seem like the kind of person who would attack a guy when he's licking blood from a mutilated corpse."
"What about the whole werewolf thing?" George asked.
"Oh my God, it's more awesome than you can imagine. I mean, I know it's supposed to be a curse and everything, but if you'd be killing people anyway, it's the best thing in the world. Not everyone takes to it. Lot of suicides in the werewolf community. They're always fighting the change instead of embracing it."
"So clearly the full moon is b
ullshit."
Ivan shook his head. "Pretty much. I mean, the full moon causes the transformation whether you want it or not, but there are a lot of other factors. Most werewolves--and I don't want to imply that there are hundreds; we're actually a very rare species--they're terrified of what they are. But if you relish the change, and you practice, practice, practice, you can do it whenever you want. Hurts like hell, but you can learn to even like that part. I love it."
"How'd you get caught?"
"I let myself get caught."
"Yeah, right."
"Okay, maybe that part wasn't entirely intentional. But I sure got out, didn't I?"
"What happens next, Ivan? Are you trying to make me the first person in the world to get talked to death by a werewolf?"
"Ooooh, we're back to being saucy again, huh? Didn't take you long to get over your horror. I want to fight it out. No guns, no butcher knives, no wolves, just you and me, man to man."
"You're going to stay human?"
"Yep."
"For how long?"
"Until you're lying on the floor with a broken jaw. I know, you're thinking that you'll get one good punch in and I'll instantly wuss out and change, but you're wrong. Let's see who's the better man."
"Fine," George said. "Let's do this."
"Excellent." Ivan dropped the butcher knife. It hit Diane's face and stuck there. Then he set George's gun back in the sink. "I recommend that we move out of the kitchen, so that nobody slips on the blood."
CHAPTER TEN
Thug Versus Wolfman
"Works for me." George walked into the dining room. Though he was so scared that he was practically trembling, he forced himself to remain optimistic. He was going to get out of this with a dead werewolf at his feet and his dignity restored. Ivan was positive that he had the upper hand, and technically he did, but it would only take one moment of arrogance and carelessness for George to make his move.
Ivan had joked about "one good punch," which was exactly what George planned to do. Werewolf or not, superhuman or not, you didn't immediately recover from a nose-breaking blow. If it didn't send shards of bone rocketing into Ivan's brain, George would pound on him until his own knuckles were bloody and Ivan's face was nothing but frothing pulp.