by Ray Garton
Andrea’s face rose up behind Jason’s glaring eyes. Something in his chest twisted until it ached and made his throat constrict. He flinched and pushed the pain away, made Andrea’s face disappear. He turned his attention back to the sidewalk across the street and focused again on Sheriff Hurley.
Jason’s thin black lips twitched, then pulled back slowly to reveal his glimmering fangs in what was almost a savage smile. The quiet rumble in his chest was like two rocks being ground together.
He had found his prey.
* * * *
Ella grabbed the doorknob and flung herself against the door as she turned it. In one smooth movement, she threw herself into the bedroom, slammed the door shut behind her, then spun around and locked it a fraction of a second before the creature slammed into it on the other side.
She was torn—should she push Farrell’s dresser in front of the door or go to the phone first? She decided on the phone.
Ella ran to the nightstand on her side of the bed.
The thing slammed against the door again and again.
She took the phone from its base, turned it on, and hit the memory button for Farrell’s cell phone. She put the phone to her ear and waited to hear the line at the other end purr.
The bedroom shuddered each time the creature in the hall slammed against the door.
Ella thought she heard the wooden door begin to crack.
* * * *
Hurley found himself standing in the rain on the sidewalk, alone for a moment, and he took the chance to close his eyes. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He was surprised there had been no more calls since the one that had brought them here to this house. He expected more—he knew they were coming—and, of course, just because there hadn’t been another call yet did not mean there weren’t people out there getting hurt and killed. Raped. Eaten.
George and his assistant came out of the house carrying the covered body on a stretcher. They put the body in the van, then George approached Hurley.
“Where in the woods?” he George said.
“I’ll have someone show you,” Hurley said. Pointing across the street, he said, “It’s beyond those houses, just a little—”
In his pocket, he felt his cell phone vibrate at the same that it chirped.
Hurley cocked his head and took a moment to frown, although he had no idea why. Then he took the phone from his pocket and opened it.
* * * *
Jason hunkered in the rain beside the house, watching, listening, smelling.
A high, mechanical, bird-like chirp cut through the night. Jason’s pointed ears twitched and turned toward the sound—across the street. He watched as Hurley reached into his pocket, then put his right hand to his ear.
Jason waited.
A moment later, Hurley tensed up, bent forward slightly, and shouted something. He shouted a word again and again—
“Ella? Ella? Ella!”
—as he began to walk in a small circle.
Others turned toward him when they heard him shout.
Hurley took his hand away from his ear, returned it to his pocket. He turned to some of his deputies and barked orders, gesturing with his hand as he started toward his SUV at the curb.
Jason tensed, prepared to move.
Four deputies ran to two cruisers along with Hurley, who got into the SUV, slammed the door, and started the engine. The cruisers roared to life.
Still hunkered down, Jason moved away from the house, across the yard, and down to the sidewalk.
As Hurley and the cruisers pulled away from the curb, sirens wailing to life, Jason broke into a run. Forgetting the two cruisers, Jason focused entirely on Hurley’s vehicle. Staying off to the side of the road in the dark, avoiding the glow of streetlights, Jason broke into a full run as he pursued the SUV. He moved with a speed and ease he’d never known before, blending in with the night.
The rain pebbled him, and the cold night air rushed over his face as he ran. Along with the hunger he hoped to satisfy soon, Jason felt exhilaration.
43
Jason and Hurley
The SUV came to a shrieking stop in front of Hurley’s house. He shifted into park, killed the engine and siren, and jerked the key from the ignition before throwing the door open and lunging out.
Ella had been unable to say anything on the phone—she’d simply screamed his name again and again. In the background, Hurley heard a sound that had chilled his blood and made his intestines feel loose: Growling.
Light glowed through the closed curtains of the windows. The Victorian house looked as pleasant and welcoming as all the other houses on the street.
The two cruisers stopped behind him in the road in front of the house. On the roofs of the cruisers and the SUV, spinning lights spilled red and blue in all directions. Two deputies got out of each car and followed Hurley, who ran across the yard to the front door.
“Ella!” he shouted, drawing his gun with his right hand, holding his keys in his left. He bounded past the three front porch steps without touching them. He did not bother trying the door—he knew it would be locked. He slipped the key in, turned it, twisted the knob, then shoved the door open and ran inside.
* * * *
Panting quietly, Jason huddled behind a Crape Myrtle bush across the street from Hurley’s house. The rain cooled him after his run.
Somewhere in the distance, a high, piercing howl stabbed the night.
Down the street, a car started, its engine revving before it sped away.
The barking of dogs came from up and down the street.
Jason watched as Hurley entered the house, calling out repeatedly. The deputies rushed forward across the yard. Movement above caught Jason’s attention, and he looked up.
A second-story window had been opened and a large, dark figure crawled out carefully and stepped over to the porch roof. Moving with stealth and grace, it went to the front edge and hunkered there, silent and motionless, watching the deputies as they neared the house.
Just before the two deputies in the center reached the porch, the figure on the porch roof dropped soundlessly through the night.
It spread its arms wide and landed on the two deputies, dropping them to the ground. The figure immediately began to slash and bite, attacking them viciously. The two men released high, shrill screams, firing their guns wildly. The guns popped sharply, like firecrackers going off in the night.
The other two deputies turned and headed toward their fallen comrades.
The figure was up in an instant and on one more of the deputies, swinging its arms furiously.
More screaming.
More gunfire.
Jason realized the figure—one of his own kind, large and powerful—had distracted the deputies completely. Staying low, he moved out from behind the Crape Myrtle and headed across the street.
* * * *
Hurley dropped his keys as he entered the house. He called his wife’s name again and again as he rushed through it, turning on lights where needed as he moved from room to room. He did not stop until he entered the downstairs bedroom. He stood just inside the doorway for a moment and stared across the room at the window that had been shattered. Shards of glass glimmered on the floor.
He spun around and ran down the hall, up the stairs, calling her name repeatedly.
He saw the battered and splintered door of the master bedroom hanging open at the end of the hall. He fell silent as he pushed himself to run even faster, his heart exploding repeatedly in his chest.
Ella lay on her back across the bed, arms stretched out at her sides. The pale blue bedspread was mussed. Her sweater was badly torn, her skirt hiked up around her waist. Her black panties lay crumpled on one of the pillows. Her legs, bleeding from harsh scratches, were spread wide. The patch of hair between them glimmered with fluids. Her breasts rose and fell slightly with each shallow breath.
The room reeked of sex, and something else—a stinging animal gaminess. Ella was alone.
“
Oh, Jesus,” Hurley cried as he lunged toward her. He put his gun on the bed as he knelt on the mattress and leaned forward over Ella, his hands on her shoulders. “Ella? Baby? Honey?”
Like her legs, her pale face had been scratched. She bled from a bite on the side of her neck. Her eyes were open to their limit, staring up at the ceiling. When Hurley spoke, she seemed not to hear him. She did not look at him, just stared blankly up at the ceiling, her mouth open.
He gently put his hand to the side of his wife’s face as his vision pixilated with burning tears. His mouth opened wide. The room filled with a sound—a long, hoarse wail that went on and on.
Ella still did not look at him, did not make a sound.
Pain filled Hurley’s chest as his heart broke. He realized gradually that the sustained sound in the room came from him. It rose up from his aching chest, an agonized wail, and tore through his throat, filling the room with his horror, his pain.
He cut the wail off abruptly, became silent.
Sounds came from outside—a jagged roar, a pain-filled scream, the cracking of gunfire—but to Hurley, they were a thousand miles away.
Once a person catches the virus, Fargo had said, it takes twenty-four to seventy-two hours for the change to take place. That process can be slowed down ... but it cannot be stopped. That person will change. And kill and eat others.
Hurley clenched his eyes shut.
Once you learn for certain that someone is a lycanthrope, you must kill that person ...
He ground his teeth together.
That person is no longer him- or herself, no longer human, and must be killed.
His burning throat constricted.
... must be killed ...
Tears streamed down his cheeks.
... must be killed ...
He tried to imagine Ella changing into ... something else. Some kind of bloodthirsty animal. He could not. The image would not come.
That person will change ...
It was impossible.
... must be killed ...
Incomprehensible.
... will change ...
Something cut sharply through his pain then, clearing the fog in his mind. Training, experience—whatever it was, it shifted his focus enough so that he registered the sounds coming from outside.
Hurley sat up and turned his head toward the window.
Through the open window, from below, he heard the sound of one of his deputies screaming in pain. He realized that a moment earlier he’d heard gunshots.
His eyes dropped down to the gun beside him on the bed. He reached over and picked it up. It felt heavier than before.
He looked at Ella again.
... will change ...
He imagined her beautiful face melting away, becoming something else ... something ugly and savage and inhuman.
... must be killed ...
Hurley moved his hand very slowly until the bore of his gun lightly touched Ella’s right temple.
... must be killed ...
His face twisted into a mask of pain as he applied pressure to the trigger.
Ella’s wide, staring eyes suddenly fluttered, then blinked several times. They darted around searchingly and finally settled on Hurley’s face, meeting his eyes.
“Eh ... Ella?” he said, frowning.
“Farrell?” she said, her voice a breathy, trembling whisper. Confusion and fear moved over her face like a shadow.
Hurley moved the gun away from her temple and set it aside on the bed. He held her face between his hands and said, “Ella, Ella.”
“Farrell?”
He put his arms around her and lifted her up, held her to him. Tears burned in his eyes and throat as he held her tightly. She clung to him and cried.
“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said, trying to make his quavering voice sound confident. “Just fine. You’re all right. You’re all right. And everything’s gonna be fine.”
Another scream rose up from below.
He turned once again to the open window. He knew he had to act.
Hurley carefully put his wife back down on the bed, saying, “You stay here, stay right here, and I’ll be back. Okay? I’ll be back.”
Her eyes asked silent questions and she reached out and grabbed his arms.
“I’ll be back,” he said, gently pulling his arms from her grasp.
He picked up the gun, got up and staggered to the doorway. He turned for a moment and looked back at Ella.
She lay on her back now, just as she had before, her head turning slowly back and forth as she stared upward. Hurley’s eyes were drawn again to the fluids that sparkled between her legs.
Tearing himself away from the bedroom was as difficult as tearing his own skin off with his bare fingers. He walked back down the hall, then jogged, then ran to the stairs, skipping steps as he went down.
The screams grew louder and there was more gunfire. A shrill, pained roar responded to the gunfire, then someone shouted, “I got it! I got it!”
At the bottom of the stairs, Hurley turned sharply to the right, then jolted to a halt, staring with wide, moist eyes.
The creature stood just inside the front door, glaring at him. It would’ve had to duck to come through the doorway. Its arms, muscular beneath all that light brown fur, were held out slightly at each side, long fingers curled inward, its head tilted forward.
For a moment, Hurley forgot everything—where he was, what he was doing there—as his eyes took in the werewolf standing before him. He kept thinking one word over and over in his mind:
Impossible. Impossible.
Outside, something released a long, miserable howl as men’s voices shouted at one another. Hurley barely heard the sounds.
The thin black lips of the creature’s muzzle curled back over glistening fangs and it made a deadly, menacing sound that nearly stopped Hurley’s heart. Hatred burned like lava in its eyes. It bent slightly at the waist as its arms, bent at the elbows, moved farther outward on the sides, and Hurley knew it was tensing to pounce, to attack him.
In one instant, the creature was rooted to the floor, and in the next, it had launched itself into the air toward him.
Hurley remembered he was holding a gun. He jerked his arm up as the creature engulfed his field of vision, then he fired.
The werewolf slammed into him like a freight train and they both flew backward. Air exploded from Hurley’s lungs as he landed hard on his back under the creature’s weight.
The muzzle of the gun was pressed hard against the creature’s body. Hurley fired again as the werewolf’s jaws closed on his left shoulder, just above his collarbone. Hurley cried out in pain.
An instant later, the creature withdrew its fangs from his flesh and jerked its head back as it released a long shrieking sound. Its entire body convulsed once, twice, then it cried out again. It looked down at Hurley then, its head trembling, eyes wide, mouth yawning open. The hatred it had shown for Hurley a moment ago was replaced by confusion, then pain, and finally fear.
As he lay beneath the suddenly quaking creature, paralyzed with terror, pain burning in his shoulder, Hurley felt a surge of anger that almost overwhelmed his fear. He sensed a sudden weakness in the beast, and it pressed him on. Certain that this was the creature that had killed Ella, he opened his mouth and roared at the werewolf just as it had roared at him. At the same time, he struggled to push it off of his body.
The werewolf rolled off of Hurley, who immediately began to crawl backward on his back, gasping for breath, still clutching his gun. Beneath his jacket, he could feel the blood flowing from his wounded shoulder. It throbbed with pain that radiated down his left arm and into his back. He clumsily scrambled to his feet and aimed the gun at the werewolf.
On the floor at the foot of the stairs, the creature lay on its back, making agonized sounds as its body writhed and twisted.
One of the deputies stumbled in through the open front door and said, “Sheriff, we—” He stopped when he saw the convulsing bea
st on the floor. “Oh, shit.” Then he turned his pale, shocked face to Hurley and said, “You’re hurt.”
Hurley, still trying to catch his breath, shook his head and dismissed the deputy’s remark with a wave of his hand. He took his eyes off the creature on the floor long enough to see that it was Deputy Scott Fredricks.
“We got one out front,” Fredricks said. “It, uh—well, the others are hurt pretty bad. I think Hewitt might be dead. But we got it. It’s on the lawn right now, and I think it’s dying.”
Hurley frowned at him. “Another? Of these?” he said, jerking his head toward the thing on the floor, which was groaning and gurgling.
“Yeah. It dropped down on us from above. I think it came out of an upstairs window.”
Confused, Hurley cautiously stepped over to the werewolf on the floor. As he glared down at it, the creature’s body began to shift and bubble, making horrible popping and tearing sounds. The fur coating its body retreated to reveal blistering, bleeding skin. The muzzle seemed to melt as the face became more human. The body was soft and fleshy, and as it regained its humanity, the face became more and more familiar.
Hurley gasped when he recognized the boy. “Juh ... Jason?” he said.
Jason’s horrified, miserable face turned to Hurley. He stared up at the sheriff with just enough recognition in his eyes for Hurley to know that he was right—it was Jason Sutherland, the boy who had been attacked by Emily Crane.
The color left Deputy Fredricks’s face as he looked down at the changing creature. “You know this thing, Sheriff?” he said.
Hurley did not reply, just stared down at the boy.
Jason rocked back and forth, howling in pain and fear.
From the front yard, Hurley could hear another creature making the same sound.
Hurley dropped to one knee beside the undulating, transforming, and retransforming creature on the floor. The eyes were clenched in pain as the fangs shortened, lengthened, then shortened again, blood dribbling from the disrupted gums. “Jason?” he said. Then, louder and sharper, “Jason!”