Wolf Hunt

by Jeff Strand

  George returned, holding both pistols. He gave one to Lou and hurried for the door. "Come on!"

  "But--"

  "If he's weakened, maybe we can take him down! He's a deranged psychopathic killer, Lou! We can't let him escape!"

  Lou followed George out of the house. Psychopathic killer? Who had Ivan killed? Was the blood on George's clothing not his own?

  Michele slammed the door of the van shut. Clearly she'd been trying to make a break for it, but retreated back to the safety of the vehicle when Ivan came outside. The werewolf ran past the van and down the sidewalk, moving with great speed yet at a visibly slower rate than during the previous chase and leaving a small trail of blood.

  "In the van!" George shouted.

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Lou threw up his arms in protest, but still got in the van. He tossed the keys over Michele to George, who started the engine and sped off.

  "We're going to run him down," said George. "We're going to squash him underneath the tires, and then we're going to back up and do it again!"

  Ivan ran along the sidewalk, just ahead. George looked wild-eyed, almost deranged and psychopathic himself, and Lou suddenly wondered if he'd survived his brief fight with the werewolf only to perish in a van wreck. "Don't drive on the sidewalk!"

  "I'm not going to!" said George, although it kind of looked like he was.

  Ivan darted across to the other side of the street, then onto somebody's yard and crossed between two houses. George slammed on the brakes.

  Off in the distance, Lou heard sirens. "Damn, it took them long enough," he said. "Okay, George, it's time to get the hell out of here."

  "We need to catch him."

  "No! Now, I'm usually happy to let you take the lead, and I've let you give orders all day, but we need to leave! I'm not going to prison for this, do you understand? If you want to keep chasing him, fine, but you're doing it on foot."

  George gave him a look of absolute fury, which immediately softened. Now he almost looked like he was going to cry. "Yeah, you're right. We'll go. The cops'll take him down."

  "You okay?"

  "Should I be okay?"

  Lou didn't say anything. They kept to the speed limit to avoid attracting police attention, though of course it was entirely possible that the cops were also seeking a black van as a vehicle of interest in the disappearance of Michele. Much to Lou's relief, they ended up making it out of the town and back onto Tamiami Trail without even driving past one of the cops or emergency vehicles.

  George stared straight ahead as he drove, looking more spooked than Lou had ever seen him. That was only to be expected--Lou was more spooked than he'd ever been, too, and most likely Michele felt the same way. But George's mental state seemed to go beyond simply "Holy shit! That werewolf almost killed me!"

  "Do you need to go to the hospital?" Lou asked.

  George shook his head.

  "We can. I mean, if you're that badly hurt. I can drop you off at the door, or I can come in with you if you need it, or whatever."

  "Do you know what he did?" George asked.

  "What?"

  "He killed the lady who lived in that house. Not just killed her--he made her talk about her family, and then he slashed her up, like it was a great big joke. Remember that hit we saw two years ago in Buffalo?"

  "Yeah."

  "That guy laughed and it was frickin' chilling, but that was an 'I finally got revenge' laugh. You could sort of understand where he was coming from. This was...it was just like 'Look how much fun I'm having stabbing this woman.' It was playtime."

  "Jesus."

  "He kept doing it after she was dead. He sat there stabbing her corpse. And her kid was in the house."

  "Seriously?"

  "Yeah. He was hiding in the bedroom. This little kid. He's already terrified, and he's going to walk into the kitchen and find his mom in a great big pool of blood, stabbed to death by a madman. I should have gotten him out of there. Should've taken him to a neighbor or something. He's five, Lou. He shouldn't see that. What's going to happen to him?"

  "He should be okay, right? I mean, Ivan's gone."

  "I'm not talking about whether or not he gets killed by a goddamn werewolf. I'm talking about him seeing his dead mom!"

  "Okay, okay, I dunno what to tell you, George! It's heartbreaking, but we didn't have a choice. We couldn't hang out there any more. Protecting the kid from psychological trauma isn't worth going to prison, right?"

  "I guess not."

  "No, no, don't use the word 'guess.' This is a definite. I'm not going to jail for a kid."

  "Yeah, you're right."

  "I am right, and we need to get this perfectly clear: we're not heroes. If you wanna be sad about the kid, I completely understand--it's disturbing as hell. But don't sit there thinking that we should've taken him by the hand and led him over to the nice old lady who lives next door. You got me?"

  "I've got you."

  "Good. I'm not a cold-hearted monster. I'm gonna have some sleepless nights over this whole thing, but the reason I'll get to have those sleepless nights is that I'm still alive."

  "I said I've got you! Quit hammering in the goddamn point!"

  "And now I think we should call Ricky."

  "Aw, shit."

  "Yeah."

  "Who's Ricky?" Michele asked.

  "If we're lucky, he's going to be the guy who covers our butts." George took his cell phone out of his pocket.

  "You want me to do it?" Lou asked.

  "Nah, I'll take the heat."

  "Don't throw up on the phone."

  "I won't."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Difficult Confession

  George took a deep breath, exhaled slowly in an effort to calm himself, then called Ricky. He hoped that the little prick didn't give him any crap, because George was positively not in the mood for it.

  Ricky answered. "George?"

  "Yeah."

  "Hey, I was half a second away from calling you. Your dog problem is on the news. I thought you were just yanking me, but I'm looking at it right now. Anyway, I just got off a conference call with Bateman and Dewey. Intense stuff."

  "Intense how?"

  "Manic depressive intense. Anger and joy. I'm glad I only have to deal with them over the phone. So here's the deal: get off the road ASAP. Find someplace safe to hide out. Get as far off the beaten path as you can. They weren't anticipating any problems like this, so they're going to send out a bunch of reinforcements and collect the furball from you."

  "Oh."

  "Your voice sounds funny."

  "Yeah."

  "Just relax. It's all going to be taken care of. Your buddy Ricky makes your headaches go away."

  "So, Ricky, what if there was another problem that they hadn't anticipated?"

  "What do you mean?"

  George could almost feel the new ulcer burning into his stomach lining. "What if we lost our cargo?"

  "Oh, shit, George. Don't tell me that. Please don't tell me that."

  "I'm sorry."

  "You lost him? For real?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh my God. This is--you've got to be--how the hell do you lose a guy in a cage?"

  "He escaped! He changed into a werewolf and escaped!"

  There was a long silence, and then Ricky let out a sigh of relief. "Ah, okay, you're just screwing with me. Good one. I almost had a heart attack over that."

  "I am absolutely dead serious! He transformed into a wolfman and got out of the cage!" George didn't see any reason to confess to his own starring role in the escape.

  "What?"

  "That's what happened!"

  "Listen to me. I've got to report back to Bateman and Dewey, and it's fine if you want to goof around with me, I deserve it, but these men have no sense of humor and I need to know the truth: do you still have Ivan with you?"

  "No."

  "Shit!"

  "I'm sorry."

  "Shit! Oh, shit! How could you lose him? You idiot!"
/>
  George bristled. Whether he was an idiot or not, he didn't appreciate being called one by a little punk like Ricky. "He changed into a wolf, that's how I lost him! I wasn't expecting it!"

  "But everybody told you he was a werewolf! I know for a frickin' fact that it came up in the conversation!"

  "I didn't believe it! You didn't believe it either! Why the hell would I believe something like that? If there's a real-life werewolf involved, that's a concept you need to do a better job of selling! You need to give me pictures or video or expert testimony! I thought he was just some skinny guy in a cage! And it's not even the full moon! The full moon was supposed to be a crucial element! I'm sorry things went bad like this, but we were not given enough information to successfully carry out this task!"

  Ricky sounded as if he were about to hyperventilate. "You have no idea how bad this is. They're going to execute you!"

  "Execute us? Nobody said this job had the risk of us getting executed!"

  "Every job has the risk of you getting executed! You know that!"

  "Why did they pick us to do it? If this was so important, why didn't they get one of their own men?"

  "Because you and Lou are good! And because it was supposed to be an easy transport job!"

  "Well, it wasn't!"

  "Look, George, this is a nightmare scenario, but I'll do everything I can to keep you guys alive. I'll stick out my neck for you. Is there anything else I should know?"

  George hesitated. "No."

  "Why'd you hesitate?"

  "Okay, the werewolf murdered somebody. A lady."

  "Aw, damn it."

  "And when we were at the gas station, we picked up this girl who was being attacked by the dogs. She 's in the van with us now."

  "Are you tugging my dick?"

  "No."

  "You brought a witness? Are you on crack?"

  "The dogs were going to kill her!"

  "You didn't have to let them kill her, but that doesn't mean you had to--you know what, I'm not going to have this conversation. I'm going to get back on the phone with a couple of very violent men, and get my ass chewed out while I try to figure out how to unfuck this disaster. Did your werewolf buddy bend the bars?"

  "No."

  "Then lock the girl in there."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "Do I sound like I'm kidding? We're in hardcore damage control mode. This is 'fingernails ripped out before they drown you' bad. You need to put that girl in the cage, hide out, and pray to God that we can clean up the loose ends. Now I have to go."

  George flinched as Ricky slammed down the phone in his ear.

  "Did that go as bad as it sounded?" Lou asked.

  "It did go poorly." George's head was pounding. "It's not our fault, right? How could we know? Even if we believed in the werewolf thing, it's not a full moon. We specifically discussed the full moon issue when we picked him up, right? I made that comment about not following the lunar cycles that closely. It's not our fault, right?"

  "Well," said Lou, "you're right that it's not our fault..."

  In addition to all of his other physical discomfort, George felt his upper lip begin to twitch.

  "...but I'm not gonna say anything else about it," said Lou. "It's done and we can't take it back. We're just gonna start from where we are and stick together."

  "Thanks, buddy."

  "However, I'm hoping that the plan involves finding someplace to hide out until reinforcements arrive."

  "It doesn't."

  "Crap."

  "We can't let him go on a killing spree," said George. "He'll leave a trail of bodies just to prove he's better than us. If we don't stop him, ten bucks says that the police will find our names spelled out with somebody's intestines."

  Lou rubbed his forehead. "I've got a headache."

  "Mine's worse. If we recapture him, we'll be okay. We'll have to do some apologizing, but they won't kill us."

  "Do you know that for sure?"

  "No, but I do know that they will kill us if that werewolf gets away."

  "So what are we gonna do, catch him in a net?"

  "Maybe."

  "We can't catch a werewolf in a net! That's ridiculous! We can't even run him down in a van!"

  "He has weaknesses, Lou. I got him in the crotch and it hurt him bad."

  "Wolfman's got nards," said Michele.

  "Excuse me?"

  "'Wolfman's got nards.' It's a quote from The Monster Squad." She seemed to realize that George was not amused. "Sorry. Trying to lighten the mood."

  "What's your knife made out of?" George asked Lou.

  "Sterling silver."

  "Our lead bullets made him bleed but they didn't really slow him down. Your knife, though--that got him. Maybe some of the werewolf lore is accurate. What do you think we could do with pure silver?"

  "Do you have any?"

  "No. I'm sure we can't just drive to Wal-Mart and pick up a clip of silver bullets, but we can get other stuff. What else can you use to stop a werewolf?"

  "We could dig a big pit and cover the top with leaves," said Lou.

  George shook his head. "We don't have time for that."

  "George, that was a joke. An obvious one. If you're so far gone that you think I was being serious about the big wolf pit, then maybe we're not in the best frame of mind to go on a werewolf hunt."

  "Okay, we need some silver," George said, continuing as if he hadn't heard Lou's comment. "Maybe we can make a tip for a spear or something. Jab it through his nards."

  "That's actually not a bad idea."

  "We need a jewelry store and a sporting goods store. No problem."

  "We drove by a bunch of antique stores when we first got here."

  "Perfect." George smiled, but then he remembered the little boy who might be crouched next to his dead mother right now, and his smile disappeared. He hoped the kid and his brother wouldn't be separated if they went into foster homes.

  "You okay, George?" Lou asked.

  "I'm fine. Delightful. Come on, let's go save our lives."

  * * *

  The first antique shop was an absolute dump of a place. Granted, any shop that sold old crap fit George's definition of "dump," since he had a whole head full of bad memories about his mom and grandmother dragging him around from shop to shop, squealing in delight when they found more rare garbage to display in their curiosity cabinets. He couldn't prove it and didn't want to, but he was pretty sure that the first female orgasm he'd ever witnessed was at the moment his grandmother found an old coffee table. It stayed in her living room for twenty years and wasn't any better than one she could have bought at a furniture store for less money and without Grandpa having to spend six months fixing it up.

  The decrepit guy behind the counter had asked if they'd been in a car accident, and George explained that, yes, they had, and that they appreciated his concern. George asked about silver, and the ancient guy had stared at him for a while, trying to think. "No," he finally said, "but I've got some Silver Age comic books. A buck each."

  "No, thank you."

  "Seventy-five cents."

  "Sorry."

  They thanked him and left the store. The next one was only two shops down, so they jogged over there and went through the rickety door. A bell tinkled as they entered. An old lady sat on a rocking chair on the other side of the small shop, reading a paperback novel and smoking a cigarette. George didn't like or care about antiques, but he was pretty sure you weren't supposed to smoke around them.

  "You're not going to get blood on my stuff, are you?" the old lady asked.

  "No, ma'am. We'll be careful."

  "Were you in an accident?"

  "Yes. None of us are going to die, though. In case you were worried."

  "Anything I can help you find?"

  "We're looking for silver. Pure silver, if you've got it."

  The old woman nodded and tapped some ashes off her cigarette onto the ashtray that rested on the rocking chair arm. "I've got plenty of
silver. What do you want?"

  "Anything you've got."

  "Sounds desperate."

  "No, we're just late for a wedding, mostly because of the car accident." He gestured at Lou. "This jackass forgot to pick up a gift."

  "Please don't curse in my store."

  "Jackass?" George decided to let it go. "Anyway, we need a gift. The bride loves silver."

  "All right." The old woman took another drag from her cigarette, then stood up and walked over to the counter, moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. George wanted to ask her to speed it up, since people might be horribly mutilated while she ambled over there, but figured that wasn't such a good idea.

  "Do you have a restroom?" Michele asked.

  "No."

  George gave her a dirty look. She probably assumed that George and Lou wouldn't prevent her from going to the bathroom when this old lady was around to hear their conversation. She really was going to end up in the cage if she wasn't careful.

  The old woman hobbled behind the counter, then ducked out of sight. A few moments later, she stood back up and set a wooden box on the counter. She raised the lid, revealing dozens of rings.

  "Great, great," said George. "Which ones are silver?"

  "The ones colored silver."

  As a rule, George didn't hit old ladies, though it was a rule for which he was momentarily inclined to try to find a loophole. He quickly went through the selection, plucking out ten or eleven of the rings.

  "By the way, I don't take credit cards," the old lady said.

  "You don't?"

  "Nope."

  "In the twenty-first century, in a store full of high-ticket items, you don't take credit cards?"

  "The credit card companies charge me service fees. Nobody ever got charged a service fee for cash."

  "Actually, ATM's do usually charge a service fee for cash withdrawals. But that's fine. I'm not going to tell you how to run your place."

  "Thank you. I appreciate that."

  "What else do you have in silver?"

  The old woman looked around. "Over against that wall, there's a silver mirror."

  "Good. Lou, go get that." Lou nodded and went over to retrieve the mirror. "What else?"

  "Well, let me see...are you Catholic?"

  "We're whatever religion worships silver."

  "I've got this," said the woman, taking out a silver crucifix that was about six inches long.