A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark

by Harry Connolly

  Albert did as he was told, leaving his throat, chest, and belly exposed. Sweat soaked his shirt and his hands trembled uncontrollably. The door finally broke apart, and he suddenly realized that his aunt was between him and the werewolf; shame ran through him and he fought the urge to jump up and throw a futile punch.

  The werewolf charged forward, open jaws rushing at Marley’s throat. Then it stopped, just inches away. It backed up a step, then lunged toward her belly. Again it stopped only inches away.

  It circled around their feet, drool sloughing off its gaping jaws. It looked huge in the dim light—it’s going to tear us apart—and Albert closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Except that only made things worse. He opened just in time to see gaping jaws rushing at his face.

  They looked four feet wide—large enough to swallow his whole head—but again they stopped short of breaking his skin. Hot spit and stinking breath struck his face, and Albert felt his whole body quivering. He was a larger meal than Aunt Marley, and younger, too. It was only right that he become the thing’s first course. He waited to feel teeth tearing into him.

  But the werewolf only roared. Then, apparently not getting the reaction it expected, backed away.

  Marley and Albert watched it move toward the far end of the cabin and squat on a battered old sofa beneath the slanted blue tarp strung near the ceiling. It looked at them both and, with the speed of a changing TV channel, the werewolf disappeared and the man appeared.

  He put his face in his hands and cried.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Egg Revealed

  The man ran through the door into the night, sobbing.

  “Darn it,” Marley said. “I ruin so many nice outfits doing this work. Help me up, Albert.”

  Albert rolled to his knees and helped his aunt stand. Marley brushed off her clothes, then had Albert turn around so she could brush him off, too. “Oh, it’s no use. Why can’t we run into these poor souls somewhere nice and clean, like a kitchen showroom or something? Would you grab my flashlight for me, dear?”

  “Of course,” Albert said, and did it. His sweat-soaked clothes were ice-cold against his skin and he felt queasy. “You know, I’ve been in firefights before. I’ve run from cover with the enemy shooting from all around because… because I had to. Once, I ran into a burning building. But I have never been so scared in my whole life as I was just then.”

  “You were the one who was excited to meet a werewolf.”

  “Aunt Marley, I never actually said... you’re going to keep torturing me over this, aren’t you?”

  She smiled. “You bet I am.”

  Albert laughed. It felt really good to laugh. “Why didn’t the werewolf kill us? Is it because I’m not delicious? Because I’m pretty sure I’m completely delicious.”

  “It’s because he’s part wolf. Wolves don’t attack human beings, Albert; a werewolf will only attack you if you run from it like prey or if you challenge it.”

  “We surrendered to it.”

  “More than that, we acknowledged its dominance by baring our bellies. Even if the human inside the creature hated us with a murderous passion, the wolf’s instinct would have stayed his hand. It recognized kinship with us and accepted our submission.”

  “That’s better than the Geneva Convention, I guess.”

  “Albert, you already know what animal is the most dangerous to other human beings.”

  “Lots of them: sharks, bears, tigers, hippos—“

  “Yes, but only in relatively small numbers. The most dangerous animal to human beings is always going to be other human beings.”

  “Oh. Well. That I know.”

  “I know you do, dear, better than most.”

  It occurred to Albert that they were still standing in the cabin, and that his aunt was certainly waiting for him to be ready to leave. He wasn’t.

  “Can I just say that your ‘most dangerous’ question wasn’t fair, because I thought you meant animals people transform into.”

  “Yes, dear, I’m very tricky; I think we’ve established that. And while I’ve heard of weresharks and weretigers, I’ve never heard of werehippos. But the world is large and life is short. It’s possible they exist and I don’t know about it.”

  Albert exhaled slowly, burning off the last of his adrenaline. “Personally, I’d rather see werehumans—people who transform into decent human beings.”

  It wasn’t terribly funny, but Marley laughed anyway out of a welcome camaraderie. “Are you under the impression that I’m testing you, Albert?”

  “Constantly.”

  “The first time I saw a werewolf, dear, I went absolutely mad with fear. I’ll tell you about it sometime, if I get the chance.”

  “Okay. I gotta say, not that I’d ever want to meet one, but a wereshark sounds cool.”

  With that, Albert was ready. He led his aunt through the open doorway into the night. The balding man sat on a fallen log a little off to the left, still weeping.

  Marley approached him. “It’s not as bad as all that, dear. No one was hurt. You can stop crying now, unless you feel you really need it.”

  “It’s hard to stop,” the man said. “And I could have killed you. I could have killed you both!”

  Marley turned to Albert. “Werewolves tend to have very strong emotions and have a hard time controlling themselves.” She crouched in front of the man. “My name is Marley and this is Albert. What’s your name?”

  “Francis.”

  “Nice to meet you, Francis.”

  He looked up at them. “Nice to meet you, too. Both of you. I’m sorry for almost killing you.”

  “Apology accepted. Francis, do you like being a werewolf?”

  “No! I hate it!”

  “Truly? Knowing you can change doesn’t give you a feeling of power? You don’t feel like an action hero, strong and fast and filled with animal magnetism? No benefits at all?”

  Francis looked at Marley a little uncertainly. “Benefits?” He laid his hand on his belly. “I’ve lost some weight over the last few months. The wolf eats a lot of squirrels. It’s like Super Atkins.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “I hate it out here. Camping is something you should do for a weekend with your kids. Not eleven months! And... and...” Whatever Francis wanted to say, he couldn’t.

  Albert said it for him: “You’ve killed people.”

  “I couldn’t help it!” Francis sobbed. “I didn’t want to, but I don’t have that kind of control over it. It’s in control of me.” Tears began to run down his face again. “But I’m ready. Now that I’ve finished the job I came to do, I think I’m finally ready for... for my cure.”

  He glanced back at the cabin. Marley seemed to understand. “Show it to me.”

  He led them back inside but stopped just past the doorway. He stared into the corner but didn’t approach any closer. Marley turned on her flashlight and retrieved a little steel box, painted blue, sitting on a folded cloth. The corners were rusty, and it squeaked when she opened it.

  There was a revolver inside. She picked it up, let the cylinder fall open, and took out the single bullet inside.

  “Oh, Kemosabe,” she said dryly. The bullet went into her pocket and she tossed the empty gun to Albert.

  “I need that!” Francis said. “That’s my only way out of this!”

  “Don’t be silly, dear. There are six or seven different cures for lycanthropy, depending. Whoever sold you this bullet was taking the easy way out.”

  “Really?” Francis said, stunned. “A real, true cure?”

  “Very much so. And don’t get yourself all worked up over it, please. I don’t want to lie down on this floor again.”

  He began taking deep breaths. “Of course, of course.”

  “Now, what was this job you had come here to do?”

  Francis explained that the People’s World Nature Educatorium had set him up in the cabin last winter. Merry was his cousin and, after Fr
ancis’s “condition” started, he’d turned to Merry for advice, correctly guessing that his cousin would have read numerous books on the subject.

  Unfortunately, they were all novels. Merry explained that Francis had been given a great gift and was now living close to nature. The whole group admired him, it seemed, and one even tried to convince him to bite her.

  “Janet?” Marley said.

  “Yeah. I didn’t do it, obviously. She’s scary enough without the fangs. Anyway, they were sure there was an illegal construction site up here that was dangerously close to the water table, so they asked me to move up here and keep an eye on things while they filed a petition with the court or something.”

  Marley laid her hand on his arm. “Show me the site.”

  Francis suggested they leave the car behind and the flashlight off, because he thought a light moving through the trees would summon a bunch of Homeland Security goons who’d drag him off to Guantanamo Bay. They slipped out of the cabin and followed a deer trail through the woods.

  “Who gave you the gun and silver bullet, dear?”

  “Some guy. A lawyer. He sought me out a few weeks ago after I sugared a couple of gas tanks. To be honest, I think he knew what I was right away, although he was really really careful. A few days later he came back again...”

  “And he gave you the gun?”

  “He tried to act all sympathetic, but he wasn’t very good at it. It was pretty clear I was just an obstacle to be swept aside. Not that I turned it down. Along with the gun, he brought pictures of my wife. And my two kids.”

  “Jesus,” Albert blurted out. “You had to leave your kids behind?”

  “Yes, of course! Do you know how infuriating kids can be? I wouldn’t have lasted three days at home; I’d have killed them all. I had to go away.”

  Marley sighed. “I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”

  Francis stopped and turned toward them. A strong wind was blowing through the trees, and the rain clouds had parted, leaving the moon space to shine between the clouds. “Are you being straight with me? Can you really offer me a cure, or is this just a trick to get me to help you?”

  “A trick?” Marley exclaimed. “Me? Oh, Francis, do I look like someone in the habit of playing tricks on people?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” Marley said. “I trick people all the time! Lie to them, too. At the moment, though, I’m telling the truth. For one thing, a werewolf who feels betrayed can be an absolute horror. For another, I don’t want to; it would be too cruel. Tell me how you got your condition.”

  “It was in an airport bathroom in Phoenix... don’t get that look, it wasn’t like that.”

  “What look?” Albert protested. “I don’t look.”

  “This guy splashed me at the sink and wouldn’t apologize. We had words and he lost control. Then, ta-daa!”

  “Did he look like a real wolf?”

  “I can’t tell a wolf from a big dog,” Francis said. “Still.”

  Marley continued patiently. “I mean, did he look like a hairy wolf man, the way you were, or did he go on all four paws?”

  “Paws,” Francis said. “I go on all fours sometimes, too, when I’m hunting.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, the good news is that your cure is not even particularly difficult.”

  “It’s not?”

  “The bad news,” Marley continued, “is that it’s expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “Very. Even I think it’s expensive, and I’m rich. I couldn’t do it for you as a charity. It would have to be a loan, and you’d have to come to work for me to pay it off.”

  “What kind of work?” Francis asked suspiciously.

  “Albert, tell Francis what we do.”

  “Travel the world, capture spies, rescue sexy countesses, avert nuclear war—“

  “Countesses!” Marley exclaimed. “Don’t you wish. No jokes, Albert, dear. It’s too dark out here for jokes.”

  “Sorry. I’m still a little tense. What we do is help people like him.”

  “How very succinct, dear. Perfect.”

  Francis looked at them hopefully. “I... will it really work? Because I want it more than anything and if it doesn’t work I’ll lose my mind.”

  “It’ll work,” Marley assured him. “If it doesn’t...” She handed him the silver bullet. “Now let’s get a move on, please. It’s been a long day and I’m an old woman.”

  They had to hike along the trail for more than a mile; luckily the rain had already stopped and the intermittent starlight was bright enough that no one tripped. Their eyes had adjusted to the dim light by the time Francis pointed through a break in the trees toward the riverbank and said, “Down there.”

  Marley and Albert took the lead moving down the slope into a small clearing. The trees here had been cut down and stacked just at the river bank twenty yards down the slope. The muddy ground was cris-crossed with tread marks and the side of the hill had been gouged many times by shovels.

  Albert moved close to the hill. “Was this hill dug out by hand?”

  “Yeah,” Francis answered. “They had other big equipment, but work on the side of the hill was done carefully and slowly. I overheard some of the workmen discussing a NAGRA site, but I wasn’t fooled. Merry was convinced there was going to be a condo here or something, but that never made sense to me and I never saw any evidence of it. Just the dig and a little ferry barge to carry away whatever they found.”

  “Oh no,” Marley said suddenly. She had walked farther along the path than the others and could see something beyond the curve of the hill. Albert and Francis rushed toward her just as she turned on the flashlight.

  “Don’t—!” Francis began, but he quickly fell silent.

  The hill had been dug deeper here. Marley played the flashlight across the mud. At the edges there were the sharp, irregular marks of a shovel and the even grooves that would be left by a stiff broom, but most of the depression was a large, smooth, concave surface, nearly five feet from shovel mark to shovel mark and narrower at one end than the other.

  Marley knew that shape. A huge egg had once been buried here.

  “What’s that?” Albert said, pointing to the sole imperfection in the smoothly curved mud wall. Marley shone her light on it. “It looks like the impression of a heavy chain.”

  Marley looked behind her at the river flowing just down the slope, then she turned to Francis. “When did they take all this equipment away? When did they close up the dig?”

  “Recently. Late Friday, I guess.”

  Marley turned back to the curving depression in the hillside and shut off her flashlight. It was nothing but shadow now, but she stared at it.

  “Oh, Albert, this is so much worse that I feared. We have to get back to the city right away.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Recrimination Game

  Marley took the revolver from Albert and gave it to Francis. “If you don’t hear from me within the week, I’m most likely dead. I’m sorry to give you hope for this cure and then abandon you this way, but this is an emergency.”

  Francis accepted the gun from her. “What is going on? What’s happening here?”

  “Even if I had time to explain it, Francis, I wouldn’t. We have to go.”

  Francis caught her elbow. “Please! I want to help!”

  Marley smiled at him in a kindly way and laid her hand on his dirty cheek. “Thank you, but no. You’re a werewolf, dear. You can’t even help yourself.”

  Francis led them back to the cabin, and they left him there with his gun and silver bullet while they hurried to their car. Albert turned the car around and, riding inside of Marley’s trick like an astronaut in a rocket, he raced along the trails to the gate—which had somehow been unlocked again—then out into North Bend.

  The streets were empty. He followed the signs to the highway. Marley’s trick, whatever it was, seemed to evaporate off of him and the car. “What was th
at, Aunt Marley? A big boulder with a chain around it?”

  “It was too smooth to be a boulder, don’t you think, dear? And besides, I can’t talk about that, not quite yet, so please don’t ask right now.” She took out her phone. She had a voicemail message, of all things.

  Marley pressed the phone to her ear and listened. The call was from Libertad’s sister, Felicidad. Marley had to play it twice, because the woman was crying so hard she could not speak clearly, but Marley understood the gist of it: Libertad had been admitted to Harborview Medical Center with a gunshot wound to her back.

  Marley told Albert to drive directly to the hospital, but not to break the speed limit. She had a bad feeling about the highways, and the night.

  Albert, reading her mood clearly, fell silent. Within the hour, they’d parked in the lot at Harborview and made their way to the Emergency Room.

  Marley hung back, letting Albert trigger the radar that opened the door. They walked along a wall of clouded glass and rounded the corner into the waiting area.

  It was quiet, even for a Wednesday, except for the fifteen people clustered at one end. Some sat and wept, some paced, some stood around the group as if guarding it. They spoke to each other in soft, soothing Spanish.

  Libertad’s sister spotted them and broke away from the group to greet them. “Marley, thank you for coming, it’s so late.”

  “Of course I came. Libertad is my friend. How is she?”

  “They expect her to survive, Mother Mary bless us all, but they’re concerned about her arm. She might lose it.”

  “Oh no!”

  “They’re doing their best for her.”

  “And this is the best place for her. The doctors here are excellent at this sort of thing. Do they have her insurance information? Because I have it all right here on my phone.”

  Felicidad laid her hand on Marley’s arm. “Thank you, but they already have it from her knee operation. Unless something has changed...?”