Wolf Hunter

by Loveless, Ryan

  Okay, it had been too long since he got laid. Might be a wolf, he reminded himself, though his dick didn’t seem inclined to listen, based on the way it knocked on his zipper. And you’d have to kill him, he silently told it. He glanced at Westley, inadvertently meeting his clear blue eyes. Westley sucked on his bottom lip and looked away. Christ, he’s hot.

  “How tall are you?” Jaylen asked, and cursed his dumb ass mouth. He couldn’t have started with, “So you like plants?” No, on second thought, considering there were now about fifty plant books on the table, all Westley’s, that was a stupid opening line as well.

  “Most people say hello first,” Westley said with a grin. “I’m Westley. I’m six-six. Hello.”

  “Jaylen,” Jaylen said, still gaping. “Six-two. Hello.”

  “I’m not that much taller.” Westley sounded defensive. Maybe size was an issue for him.

  “I know, I —” Jaylen gestured along the broad shoulders, huge chest. “You wear it well.” Fuck. Not a good thing to say in Podunk, USA. He glanced around, but the librarians were quietly engaged behind their desk. No one to take offense except Westley, who was grinning at him.

  “Thanks. Well, except when I’m being a clumsy ass.”

  Jaylen blinked. Westley didn’t seem to have any clue he’d been hitting on him. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or disappointed.

  “You don’t live here, right?” Westley asked. “Or did you just move? I don’t come into town much, well, except for here, so I don’t always catch all the news.”

  “Just passing through.” Jaylen repeated the excuse he’d given the librarians.

  “But you stopped in the library?” Westley’s mouth quirked.

  “I’m doing a self-guided tour.” Jaylen offered his standard statement.

  “Of this place?”

  Jaylen spread the map out. “I like small towns. Might as well see what they have to offer.”

  “I guess you’re right. You do this a lot?”

  “It’s off and on. I have to stop sometimes and make a little money.”

  “Sure, sure.” Westley nodded as if he had a clue what Jaylen was talking about, of the nuances, subtleties and implications of that statement. “Well, I hate to meet and run, but...”

  “No problem,” Jaylen said. “Maybe we’ll see each other around.”

  “Yeah.” Westley gathered up his books. He tripped on the chair as he got up, but righted himself. Casting a red-faced glance at Jaylen, he headed for the desk. Jaylen watched his ass go. Even in the loose-fitting jeans, he could see the way it curved, the high arch and strong thighs. He forced himself to look away toward the faded outlines of the town map with its cute little triangle markings delineating the historical sites scattered amongst the wash of green that denoted the woodland and the yellow that marked the fields. But when the door chimed, he couldn’t resist a last glance at departing baggy jeans as Westley went through it and jogged down the steps.

  With distractions gone, Jaylen didn’t take long in finding a likely spot to move the bodies. There was an unmarked patch of land not far from the town square but still away from any areas of habitation. It would do fine. Jaylen would do a drive by to make sure, and if not, there were plenty of other wide open spaces on the map.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FROM HIS CAR, Jaylen gave the empty spot on the map a once-over after he left the library. It was an empty chunk of grassland, abutted on one side by a wire fence that separated it from the grounds of La Mer High School and Middle School and by gravel roads on the three other sides. The nearest home was a quarter mile off. He did a test run between the road that ran behind the Curlicue (all quiet there; maybe no one found it odd it was closed) back out to the prairie patch. It was almost obstacle free: one stop sign and a twisty path lined by trees the only things separating the two. It would do—better than some places he’d found to dump a body.

  It was early evening when he walked into his motel room, McDonald’s bag in hand. He tossed it on the table. It usually took two hours for the drug to kick in, assuming he stayed awake throughout. He’d be ravenous after, so he sat down to eat two cheeseburgers to take the edge off. He folded the bag up to save the other two for later. Then he washed his hands and set three powders out in a ramekin burner. After adding water he’d had blessed by a priest, he lit a flame beneath it and began the chant. When he finished, he drew the dissolved powders up in a syringe and injected it into his arm. He doused the flame and put his equipment away before the impact moved through his blood. Fighting through it, he clawed his way to the bed and fell on top of the ropes still strewn across it.

  The nascent effects of the drug were similar to the last stages of detox, those moments when he couldn’t tell monster from human, but they didn’t come with hallucinations, and for that reason he preferred it. He gulped from the lone full water bottle left from his detox until the burn in his veins settled into a warm almost-comfort. Moving was still a pipe dream, so he settled in. There were worse things than porn pay-per-view and a vibrating bed.

  After he’d burned through a dollar fifty and a screening of “Star Fuck, The Anal Frontier,” he ate the other cheeseburgers and felt revived enough to tuck the ropes back into his duffel bag. He carried two—one for ropes and weapons, and one for his clothes and toiletries. Super embarrassing to get those mixed up, especially on the occasions he pulled the human kind of tail. Funny how no one believed him when he said he didn’t have a bondage and knife-play fetish and he wasn’t a serial killer but he, honest, swear to God hunted werewolves and no, he wasn’t kidding, and could they please stop looking at him like that?

  He needed to label the damn bags or color code them or something. Maybe a string, but then he’d have to remember which was which....

  His brother would have been good at that. Sunny used colors to organize shit all the time. Even when he was little, he was always blue-shelving this and red-shelving that and “No, Jaylen, Transformers go in the purple box.” Jaylen could still remember every shelf in the playroom, Sunny’s whole system. He could still remember the mischievous glee he’d felt in dumping all the containers into one another, mixing it all up, to piss Sunny off.

  He used to love pissing Sunny off.

  He’d talked to someone once in a moment of weak, post-sex honesty, told him that, and the guy had asked if he felt bad about it now. Jaylen hadn’t needed to think about it. “Naw,” he’d said, putting on a shrug and his who-gives-a-fuck face and turned his back to do the “Thanks but no thanks for breakfast” thing.

  The guy probably thought he was lying, but he wasn’t. If Sunny came back today, alive, Jaylen would go right on being his obnoxious little brother because that was the only way he’d ever known to show Sunny he loved him. It was the only way he’d ever found to communicate with Sunny, by plopping himself right in the middle of Sunny’s schema and stomping around like Godzilla.

  Christ, he wanted Sunny now, wanted to mix up his plastic boxes and unmake his bed and switch out the school books in his backpack for their mother’s Harlequin books.

  And then he’d squeeze the fuck out of him and tell him how fucking sorry he was. Sorry I let you get eaten. Sorry I didn’t fight. Sorry I hid like a little baby.

  Sorry I haven’t killed the wolf who did it yet, but I got two of them. Two out of three. Just not yours. Not yet.

  Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

  IT WAS RIDICULOUSLY easy to get the bodies out the backdoor of Curlicue’s and into his trunk. He picked the lock in ten seconds and was on his way in five minutes. Another five and he was parked in the middle of the grass patch. Two things a man needed to dig a grave: shovel and beer. Something to dig with, something to get drunk with. Shovel in hand, and two Budweiser bottles caught between his first, second, and third fingers of his other hand, he set to work in the dark. The ground was soft from a recent rain and broke easily. Jaylen had dug enough graves in his time that he was able to mark out an area six foot by four by eyeballing it. He cracked through t
he borders straight, pulled up the sod and set it aside to patch up the ground later. He worked his arms and shoulders into a rhythm and soon had dirt flying up faster than a burrowing badger. He hopped into the hole as soon as it was ankle-deep and kept going.

  He stopped to empty one Bud down his gullet and tossed the bottle toward the car to be picked up on his way out. Wiping his mouth, he pulled his hand away slow when he heard a wolf’s growl and the shriek of a forest critter on its last breath. Jaylen hit the ground hard, crouched in the hole with the mound of loose dirt between him and the thing in the woods. The crescent moon shown above, three-quarters full, not enough not bring out the change, not unless—Jaylen stayed down as a slow grin stretched over his beer dappled lips. Snarls floated into his range of hearing as the wolf chowed down. He palmed his knife and crept toward it. Three kills in one day... and tomorrow, he’d seek out the Alpha. This early transformation confirmed it: Denton was near. The wolves were probably confused now, wondering what was causing their increased aggression, their fucked up cycles. Jaylen could tell them a few things, if he cared enough to talk before he stabbed.

  The wolf hadn’t noticed him yet. It was a were, no question about it. Real wolves didn’t lose their senses when they ate. It was only the greedy, gluttonous bastards that walked on two legs the rest of the month that acted like this. A real wolf would have spotted him by now. Jaylen leapt on its back as it swung its head, a second too late. He slashed the wet snout, waking a line of blood from its eye to its nose. The wolf yipped, snarled, and shook him off. Jaylen hopped up, planted his feet at shoulder width, and crouched. The wolf came at him hard. He spun, dodged, and pushed the knife up, aiming for the belly, but it glanced off the wolf’s ribcage.

  “Come on!”

  Another run, Jaylen caught it by the fur on its back and tossed it. It was a thin, wiry thing, breath fresh with its kill on its tongue. Jaylen spat to get the taste out of his own mouth.

  “You ever hear of a toothbrush?”

  The wolf charged again. Jaylen nicked its ear, took off a chunk. It reeled around again, but stopped.

  “Don’t stop now!” Jaylen held the knife out, teasing. He was invincible. “Let’s do this!” He was He-Man, he was She-Ra, he was the goddamn Lord of the Rings and of the Dance. The wolf lunged. One step back, knee to the ground, knife hand up, soft belly found, twist, and done. The wolf landed on him, limp. Jaylen shoved it off. On his knees, he wiped his blade clean on the grass.

  The wolf didn’t turn back to human. Sometimes they didn’t when the Alpha was around. Jaylen flung it over his shoulders, paws on either side of his neck, and walked it to the grave. Its blood ran warm over his shirt and jacket. He’d dig the grave a little deeper to fit it. Whistling the theme to “Three’s Company,” he popped the top off another beer and took a long swig. Sticking it in the dirt to keep it cold, he threw himself into his task. He judged the hole deep enough when he stood shoulder-high in it. The first light of dawn teased toward him—another reason to call it finished. He threw the man in first—rolled him, actually—and tossed the wolf next to him. Then the girl.

  She landed on her side and remained that way, buoyed by her father’s round gut. After a day in the coffee shop’s cold cellar, her empty eyes stared up, white and useless. Jaylen had hardened himself to killing the young ones back when he’d been young. Maybe that was why it didn’t bother him so much. It was a two-way street devoid of pity. Still, he had to look away as he tossed the first shovel of dirt over her pale legs. The hallucination sprang fresh to his mind of a tearful girl in a pretty yellow dress wanting to impress a boy. Biting down against empathy for a monster, he flung the dirt down and down and down until they were all covered up and he could breathe again. He finished filling in the dirt, tamped it down and spread out what wouldn’t fit as best he could before laying the sod back down. He packed it as flat as he could, and stood off a few yards to compare the level against the rest of the grass.

  It would do. He dusted the dirt off his jeans. Standing behind his car with the trunk open, he changed his shirt and rolled his bloodied jacket and T-shirt up and stuffed them into a plastic bag, which he wedged behind the spare tire. Then, he walked back to the front, grabbed up his beer bottles and caps, and got in the car. He tossed them in the footwell and idled the car over to the road. He kept his lights off until he reached the intersection, then coaxed it into gear and eased back to life. On the trip back to the motel, he cranked up a cracked cassette of Run DMC in his radio, pushed the windows down, and yelled along. The words fell rapid-fire out of his mouth, natural as his own speech. Adrenaline pushed through his veins. He probably wouldn’t sleep the few hours he had before morning, but screw it. He felt good, great, and until he crashed, he’d hold onto that feeling with all he had.

  THERE WAS A restaurant directly across the town square to the Curlicue, and that was where Jaylen took up residence in the morning. It was the kind of small town special Jaylen saw in almost every town, a place with homestyle cooking that didn’t need quotes around it because it actually was someone’s mom in the back hand-making meat loaves, and her daughter delivering them, and her husband manning the cash register. These places valued function over form, so any thought put into decor, if there was any thought at all, was secondary to quick service, double portions, and guaranteeing everyone left with a smile and a full belly. The furnishings at the creatively named La Mer Square Restaurant consisted of the sort commonly found in school cafeterias—garish orange plastic chairs and tables in laminate white that could, with the pull of a pin, fold up their metal legs and be stacked away. The vinyl floral tablecloths did nothing to dissipate the image, but the blackberry buckle was warm and the view was unobstructed, so Jaylen couldn’t think of a reason to complain.

  Well, except for two. His waitress was a werewolf. And the hostess. Was there an affirmative action on hiring wolves as hospitality staff in this town? He couldn’t kill anyone here with the other patrons acting like the waitress walked on water for delivering plates of the Sunday Special (pancakes big as the plate, eggs “done as you like” and four strips of fatty bacon). He shoved his white mug to the end of his table, as far away as he could get it so she’d keep her distance while topping him up with the hot coffee. He grunted when she asked how he was doing and ignored her after that until she left him alone. The hostess stayed at her position near the door, but he kept an eye on her anyway. So what if she looked thirteen? He’d put down younger.

  Looked all quiet across the square. Curlicue Coffee Shop remained shuttered. A few people walked the square in track pants, the morning traffic consisted of a steady line of pick-up trucks and minivans circling the square to exit mostly out the south side, which, according to Jaylen’s map, led to the interstate thirty miles away and, more locally and probably more likely for a Sunday, five of the town’s ten churches. No one even slowed down to wonder why Curlicue was closed. A shadow dropped over Jaylen’s table. At first, he thought the sun had gone behind a cloud, but then a cheerful voice said, “Jaylen, right?” and Jaylen looked up to see the sun was inside and beaming at him through Westley’s guileless smile.

  Jaylen forced himself to listen to his body before he responded, even though Westley had a smile he wanted to dive into. His veins stayed quiet; his tongue stayed moist. That was all he needed. Westley wasn’t a werewolf. Praise ye gods. “Hey. You want to sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  Jaylen took advantage of Westley’s distraction in pulling out the plastic chair to appreciate the way his gray T-shirt stretched over his chest. Now that the wolf question was out of the way, Jaylen was ready to let his horn dog flag fly.

  “Thanks,” Westley said. “I’m supposed to meet my friend here, but I guess he’s running late.”

  “How late?”

  “Twenty minutes?” Westley said. He didn’t sound sure. “He might have had to work. He’s not very good at calling.”

  “Well, he sounds like he sucks,” Jaylen said cheerfully. He stabbed an
other heaping forkful of his buckle. “This is delicious.” He spoke with his tongue wrapped in sweet, tart, goo, not caring that someone, somewhere, had told him not to talk with his mouth full. Pointing at it with his fork, he added, “You should get this.”

  “I usually get the special.” Westley smiled in the non-committal way of a man uninterested in what he was missing. “The pancakes are really good.”

  Jaylen closed his eyes to savor the remains on his tongue. “Mmm.”

  Westley cleared his throat. Jaylen opened his eyes to see him grinning. “You really like food.”

  “Small pleasures, man.” Sighing in ecstasy, he took another bite. Times like this, he didn’t want to know if the woman he kept catching glimpses of through the kitchen’s swinging doors was a wolf. Times like this, he wanted to pretend she was a sweet middle-aged lady who liked baking pies and keeping people happy. For that reason, that weakness, he’d go back and thank her later, get close enough to her to let the drug do its magic on him. Because he couldn’t afford to be soft like this. He’d have his pie now, and if she was a wolf, he’d feel sick about how much he’d enjoyed it later, and he’d cure that sickness by putting her down.

  “Well, in that case, you should try the waffles,” Westley said. “The secret ingredient is nutmeg.”

  “Maybe I will. So, how’s your garden?” Jaylen asked. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

  Westley looked confused for a moment, but then his expression cleared. “Oh, right. You saw the books I had yesterday. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s a hobby. Saves money on vegetables and I grow my own herbs and stuff.” As he talked, he sorted the condiments on the table, lining up the syrup, sugar, and tabasco sauce in a row.