Once Bitten

by Reinke, Sara

  “Mom.” He looked up at her with a frown. “Trust me. Jail is the least of my concerns right now.”

  If the truth be told, he wasn’t thinking much about himself at all. He’d tried to raise Sandy on the radio again, but had no better luck than his previous attempts. Her cell phone voice mail still immediately picked up.

  With the mooring lines loose, he settled back against his seat, draping his arm atop the gunwale and letting the Quagmire slowly chug-chug-gurgle-chug its way out of the slip. The Triton had a smooth prop walk that provided an ever-so-gentle turn to port as it reversed, the stern swinging out in a slow, lazy arc, pivoting from the bow.

  “It will be dark soon,” Wilma lamented from the dock.

  “I know.” Gough had told him to go after Wilder in the daylight, when he’d be more vulnerable. Sandy had obviously entertained the same idea. But now she was missing and if she was in trouble, John doubted it was the sort that could wait until morning.

  “You really should be wearing a lifejacket,” Wilma called.

  “Give it a rest, Mom,” he called back, as the Quagmire chugged forward in the water, cleaving a thick, bubbly trough in the water.

  Duvall Island wasn’t big, less than fifteen full acres, and covered in lush, tropical forests and surrounded by sandy beach. A long jetty protruded out of the southeast end of the island, the formal dock by which visitors came and went, but Sandy had opted for a more surreptitious arrival. He found His Girl Friday tucked in a small wash along the northernmost shoreline. All of the portholes on the Bayliner were dark and there were no signs of life. She’d obviously dropped anchor here, then either swam to the beach or, more likely, motored ashore on a dinghy.

  “Damn it,” John muttered, rocking the boat as he stumbled heavily to his feet. He had a dinghy stored aboard the boat, but it would need to be inflated—and he’d need both hands to operate the oars to steer it.

  And that’s not going to happen, he thought with a frown, looking at his useless left hand, impotent and immobile. Swimming was out of the question for likewise reasons. That, and he had entirely too much stuff to lug ashore with him.

  And because, as his ex-wife Bevi had so kindly pointed out once-upon-a-divorce ago, he loved his boat more than just about anything else in the world, with the possible exception of his car, John couldn’t live with the idea of running the Quagmire aground, risking damage to his keel.

  So I’ll find another way, he told himself. I’ll tie off at the dock.

  He hated that idea almost as much as ruining the underside of the Quagmire, because that would undoubtedly ruin any advantage of surprise he might have had. But I don’t have a choice.

  He saw no other boats at the jetty, no people. Once he’d drawn the Quagmire up to the dock, he stood, taking up his mooring line, draping its heavy coils over his left arm, securing the end to his wrist. Doing most of the work with his good hand, he heaved the rope overboard, lassoing the nearest dock cleat. He then hurriedly untied the end from his arm, lashed it off to the Quagmire’s deck with a cleat hitch, tightening the line until the boat rocked gently, securely in place.

  As he limped along, he shrugged to resituate the pack he’d borrowed from his mother’s shed, which he now wore slung across his back. Wilma had told him it held up to one hundred ounces of water at a time—roughly six and a quarter pounds—and he’d filled it to the bulging brim before they’d left for the marina. He carried the Super Soaker pistol, ridiculously bright, like some kind of futuristic hand cannon from a really crappy sci-fi movie, tucked into one of the pockets of his dad’s old leather tool belt. In the other pouches, he’d stuffed the nail gun he’d purchased, the packs of pink golf tees, a flashlight, a couple of the smaller sized canisters of garlic powder and his old police-issue pepper spray that Wilma had kept in a shoebox in her closet.

  He looked—and felt—like an idiot.

  As he stepped off the dock onto the wooden walkway leading into the forest, he saw something moving, a low-slung shadow slipping out of the surrounding sea grass and palm fronds. This was followed closely by the tell-tale rumbling of a dog’s warning growl.

  John froze. He could see it as it approached, some kind of barrel-chested mastiff breed, with a head the size of a twenty-gallon bucket and paws that each had to be bigger than his hand. The dog stepped onto the boardwalk, its black, furry lips peeling back to reveal white teeth, bared with menacing intent. If Ethel Merriwether’s new dog, Twinkles, was big, then this thing was an absolute brontosaurus.

  Or, more appropriately, a T-rex.

  “Shit.” John shied back but his left leg wouldn’t cooperate, too leaden and numb for quick movements. Little more than lame, he stumbled clumsily, arms pinwheeling as he struggled to keep his balance.

  The dog’s moist, dangling jowls rippled as it huffed at him, a cross between a snort and a bark. He couldn’t make out its eyes, black against the backdrop of dark fur, save for two little winks of light. No collar, no tags.

  I ought to radio in to Animal Control, John thought. Moving slowly, dragging his unwieldy leg along with him, he began inching his way backwards. Yeah. That’s it. I’m just going to get back on my boat, go below and call in ship to shore.

  “Nice doggie,” he said. “I don’t want to mess with you. I just want to get my secretary and go home.”

  The dog woofed again, closer to a bark and less of a belch this time.

  “You’re right.” John nodded in concession. “She’s my assistant, not a secretary. That was patronizing. Condescending, even, if not somewhat supercilious.”

  The dog barked, sharp, throaty, intimidating. At least, at first he thought it was the dog on the walkway. But then it occurred to him that the sound had come from his immediate left and he glanced over his shoulder, jerking in surprise as another dog, hulking and huge stepped out of the shadows beneath a tangle of elephant ear leaves.

  Another dog followed, then another, and another, all growling and snarling, closing in on him. In less than five strides, they had circled him, clambering onto the boardwalk, blocking his only avenue of escape.

  “Shit.” John reached for his tool belt, grabbing the fat black canister of his pepper spray. When the first dog leaped at him, mouth open, a trail of thick, ropy slobber arcing in the air behind it, John swung his arm up, leveling the can at its head and shoving down the trigger with his thumb.

  The concentrated stream caught the dog first in the mouth then, as it whipped its head to the side, crashing out of the sky like a felled bird, it splashed into its eyes. With a shrill yelp, the dog hit the ground, shaking its head furiously and mopping at its muzzle with its paws.

  Movement out of the corner of his gaze caught his attention, and John swung around. As another of the dogs charged him, lips pulled back, teeth bared, he hosed it, too, sending it scrabbling back on the gangplank, howling.

  Two down, John thought, reeling about in a clumsy pirouette. Three to go.

  The dogs still flanked him on all sides, their hackles raised, low growls rising from their throats. Now their gazes cut warily from his face to his hand, the can of pepper spray.

  “That’s right,” John said. “You’re not so tough now, are you?”

  One of them braved a cautious step forward, but scuttled back when he shoved the pepper spray emphatically at it.

  “You want some of this?” he yelled. “Come on, then! What are you waiting for?”

  He was pumped up on bravado and adrenaline and forgot he was anything but at his physical best. His leg abruptly folded beneath him, the feeling and coordination gone, and he crashed to the gangplank hard, catching himself on his elbows and forearms, gritting his teeth as the impact sent a shudder of pain through his body. In the effort to stop himself from face-planting into the weather-beaten wood, he inadvertently loosened his grip on the pepper spray. With a clatter, it jarred loose of his fingers completely and spun away, rolling just beyond his reach, then dropping over the side of the deck planks into the grass.

  Shi
t! John blinked after it, then grimaced as he struggled to sit up, to try and get his feet beneath him. Maybe I can still make it back to the boat.

  Pawing at the handrail along the gangplank, he tried to hoist himself upright. He heard growling, and cringing, glanced over his shoulder. The two dogs on his right had crouched down, preparing to spring. Oh, shit, he thought, because another wild glance to his left revealed that the remaining dog was also ready to spring, its hindquarters hiked, its front shoulders dropped to the ground, slobber dripping from its glistening gums.

  He groped desperately at the handrail, kicking his good leg in a frantic effort to stand. Oh, shit, he thought, and when the dogs all leaped in unison, lunging at him, he hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes, waiting for the moment of contact with their teeth. Oh, shit, shit, shit!

  The sharp report of gunfire startled him. One of the dogs yipped loudly, shrill, its voice drowned out by another gunshot, then another. The dogs scattered like tumbleweeds in a dust storm, high-tailing back into the underbrush.

  Huddled against the boardwalk, he opened his eyes to find himself alone on the gangplank, all of the dogs gone.

  Well, almost all of them.

  One had been shot, knocked by the force of the bullet into the nearby tall grass. He could just make out its paws moving slowly, weakly as it lay on its side, wounded.

  A slim silhouette stepped out of the woods, walking toward him.

  “Sandy?”

  She stared down at the dying dog, her arm extended, her small hand wrapped around the stock of what appeared to be a gleaming nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol, not Mina, the sawed-off shotgun.

  “What do you call that one?” he croaked.

  She spared him a Duh! look as she plugged another round into the still-squirming dog, bringing it to abrupt stillness. “A gun,” she replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “John.”

  More so because the lingering, pungent stink of scorched gunpowder than his physical deterioration, he still couldn’t get up of his own volition. His body and mind had reacted reflexively to both the sound of the pistol blasts and the subsequent smell as the smoke faded, and he blinked down at the visible portion of gangplank between the toes of his shoes, panting hoarsely for breath, his body glossed in a sheen of clammy sweat as he struggled to compose himself.

  Sandy squatted beside him, jamming the gun out of his immediate view down the back of her pants. “What are you doing here?” “ Slipping her arm around him, she grunted as she tried to help him stand. “You should be back at Little Pink in…” Her voice trailed into silence.

  “What?” he asked.

  A soft smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You came for me.”

  “What?” He managed a laugh. “No, I didn’t. I was just out for a boat ride. Getting a little fresh air.”

  “Oh, really? What’s this?” Her hand slipped to his tool belt and she pulled out one of the garlic powder shakers.

  “I thought I might get a pizza later.”

  “You thought I was in trouble. You came out here to rescue me.”

  He laughed again. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not.” Still she smiled at him, moved. “It’s sweet.”

  “Sweet, hell,” John growled. “I pay you by the hour. You’re almost into overtime charges now that the sun’s going down.”

  She started to say something, but looked beyond the gangplank into the shadow-draped foliage and remained silent, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes widening slightly.

  “What?” John followed her gaze. One of the dogs had fallen here, the one she’d finished off with a second shot moments earlier. Only instead of seeing mangy paws laying sprawled in the grass and fern fronds, he saw a pair of legs, slim, tone, pale and definitely not canine.

  “It’s a woman.” Sandy left him to balance unsteadily on his own, ducked beneath the balustrade of the boardwalk and waded into the heavy underbrush, shoving aside leaves and grass. “A naked woman.”

  “Let me see.” John bent over, grimacing and grunting as he shuffled underneath the handrail to follow.

  The woman lay face down, arms and legs out spread-eagle fashion, her blonde hair framing her head. A bullet wound crimped the base of her skull inward and her blood stood out in glistening, stark contrast to her pale hair, the skin of her back. Sandy caught the woman by the shoulder and wrestled with her slight but unwieldy dead weight as she turned her over.

  “It’s Britney Wilson,” Sandy said, although the posthumous introduction was unnecessary. John recognized her, if only by the generous and definitely unnatural endowment of her breasts.

  “She’s the assistant manager over at the Show Me! bar,” Sandy said. “I met her when I went out there looking for Boyd Wilder.”

  “Me, too. She promised me a free drink,” he said, then just before keeling over backwards, his eyes rolling up into his skull, he added, “I guess I won’t get it now.”

  “John?”

  He blinked stupidly up at a rapidly darkening sky where a dusky rose hue was yielding all too quickly to plum-tainted night, and Sandy, who stared down at him.

  “What happened?” he asked in a croak.

  “You fainted.”

  He frowned. “I did not.”

  “Yes, you did. I saw you.”

  “Girls faint. Men pass out,” he grumbled, aware now of a fierce pain in the back of his head, undoubtedly where he’d rapped his skull upon impact with the ground. Grimacing, he tried to sit up. Beyond the gangplank, he could see Britney Wilson’s pale flesh, stark against the shadow-draped foliage surrounding her. “You killed her.”

  “Not her,” Sandy said. “It.” He looked at her, bewildered. “I’ve been scoping the place out, getting a feel for the lay of the land. I haven’t been able to get close to the house all day. People were there, hanging out on the porch, walking around the grounds. She was one of them.”

  John tried to raise his brow, but since that side of his face was affected, it didn’t work. “Gough said Wilder would have humans around to protect his nest.”

  It made sense, he told himself. Britney Wilson had grown visibly defensive, if not outright protective of Wilder when he’d questioned her at the Show Me! bar.

  Sandy shook her head. “She’s not human, though. There were dogs all around you, ready to attack.”

  “What are you saying?” Puzzled, he looked between Sandy and the dead girl. “This isn’t a dog, Sandy.”

  “You’re right. It’s a lycanthrope, otherwise known as a loup-garou, melancholia canina or daemonium lupum. A werewolf.” When he rolled his eyes, she frowned. “What? Dr. Gough told me werewolves and vampires were often associated in different cultures, sometimes to the point of being indistinguishable from one another.”

  He stared at her, and in that moment, all of the convictions, however reluctant, that had come to him since that afternoon suddenly crumbled. This is crazy, he thought, blinking again at the motionless girl laying sprawled in the grass.

  “You saw her, too, John,” Sandy told him pointedly.

  “No, I didn’t,” he replied. I saw a pack of dogs about to attack me, and I ducked my head. So who’s to say Britney Wilson wasn’t standing over here in the shadows, the one siccing them in the first place? Sandy didn’t hit any of the other dogs. Gracie’s the trick shot, not her. So maybe one of her bullets went wild, cut through the bushes, hit Britney by mistake.

  He tried not to think of the fact that, accidental hit or not, Sandy’s second shot had been very much deliberate, a well-placed, well-aimed shot delivered squarely to the back of Britney’s skull.

  “Okay, then.” Sandy left his side, returning to Britney’s. She squatted and reached down, turning the dead girl’s face more fully into John’s view, pushing her bloody hair back from her cheeks and brows so he could see her clearly. “If she wasn’t one of the dogs, how do you explain that?”

  Sandy looked up at him expectantly and he had a difficult time m
eeting her gaze. This was because his eyes were currently riveted on Britney’s body, more specifically, on her face. Her eyelids, cheek and forehead looked scalded, a bright red, irregular raccoon-like mask framing them.

  Chemical burns, he realized. From my pepper spray.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered. “She’s a werewolf.”

  “I told you.” Sandy stood once more, dusting her hands against her hips.

  “What’s next? Leprechauns?”

  “Oh, no. You’d never find them traveling in a pack. Leprechauns are solitary creatures. And, as a rule, shoemakers.”

  John chose to ignore her. “So what do we do now?”

  “We’re not going to do anything,” Sandy replied. “You’re going to get onto your boat and putter back to shore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Meanwhile I’m going to go back to Wilder’s house.”

  “Putter? I’ll have you know I’ve topped the Quagmire out at five and a half knots before.”

  “If the werewolves are all out here in the woods, that means maybe I can get inside now and shoot him.” Sandy whipped out the pistol again, a chrome-plated, monstrous thing that immediately twisted his stomach into anxious knots and forced his balls to crawl up into the pit of his gut.

  “Where did that come from?” His voice gulped short as his throat constricted.

  “The back of my pants,” Sandy replied primly.

  “What do you call it? Mini-Mina?”

  She laughed. “I like that. But no. This one is Harry.”

  “What, as in Dirty Harry?” His breath was hitching now, his heart jackhammering.

  “No, as in Harry Shearer,” she replied. “He’s an actor. He does some of the voices on The Simpsons. He was in This Is Spinal Tap, too. He was also in Abbott and Costello Go To Mars back in the 1950s, when he was a kid, did you know?” She spun the pistol on her forefinger by the trigger guard, offering it to him, butt-first. “Here. Want to see?”