The Mongrel

by Seán O'Connor

  “The rangers closed the roads. I told you…” Then he noticed what was in her hand.

  “I can’t believe you left me up there. In my state, you should have been there. How could you do this to us? Our baby. Me. How the fuck could you do that?” she cried, her breath coming fast and shallow, her voice echoing off the walls.

  Phil’s face twitched, his eyes squinting. “You want to know why, huh? Do you?” His jaw muscles bulged with the tension in his words. “I’ll tell you why. Because your wonderful father paid me to go.”

  That hit her like a ton of bricks. She tried to shape the words, but so many ran through her head. “W… What d’you…mean? You’re a fucking liar!”

  “I mean what I said, Erin. He paid me to leave you.”

  “And you accepted? Did he pay you to try to kill me?” She couldn’t believe the words she was hearing. The reality of it bore down on her with a pressure she’d never experienced in her life.

  “No, Erin, that part was on me. I took his money, gladly, but wasn’t going to leave without making a fuck you statement I’m sure that bitter old prick would appreciate.” He almost spat the words out, his tone sadistic. “Him and his fucking dog sanctuary.”

  He glanced around, then gulped, as if preparing for something big. “Him finding you in there would have been the perfect farewell note.” He glared at her, a look she’d seen too often in their apartment. “You weren’t supposed to come out of it, you fucking bitch!”

  She held her face, wet with tears. “Please, Phil, tell me this isn’t true. Tell me it’s lies.”

  He shrugged, held his shoulders high. “Sorry, Erin, it was a sloppy plan, but if I can’t be with you, then no one can.”

  Within seconds, the transformation that washed over him was complete. The monster she knew so well had returned, but this time with murder in his eyes. His face flushed, boiling with rage. His eyes zoned in on her with a stone-cold killer glare.

  He lunged at her and grabbed her shoulders, pinning her to the bed, glaring at her with a frenzied madness that reminded her of the wolf.

  “Why didn’t you stay up there, huh? Why didn’t you just fucking die?’”

  She tried to move, but he was too strong. “What about your son? What about our child?”

  “Fuck the child! I told you, I’m sick of it all. I hated my life with you and that hole we lived in. I told you so many times, but you never listened, always coming back with shite like we’ll get through it. And don’t think I don’t know what you meant by that. Ask your fucking daddy to bail us out, huh? Isn’t that it?”

  It spewed out of him, a flood of hatred, obviously bottled up and festering for months, if not years. He pushed harder on her shoulders.

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “I wanted that job in Canada and all you did was hold me back. I’m sick of you and him ruining my life.”

  “Then go!” she snapped, squirming under him, unable to move. “Don’t…let us…burden you.”

  “That baby probably isn’t even mine, anyway. No doubt your fucking daddy would be all over him and I’d never get a look in. Joseph Greene and his fucking empire.”

  “Go then! Fuck off to Canada, but you’ll be on your own.”

  He frowned at her. “What are you on about?”

  “Your mate, Geoff? Well, he won’t be there to lick your arse. Oh, no, poor Geoff is lying up there in the valley. You wanted me gone, you bastard, well fuck you, I ended that slimy prick.”

  His eyes blazed. “Geoff is dead? What’re you saying? Geoff isn’t here, he’s…” He dragged her up and glared at her. “What are you saying, you fucking bitch!”

  “He’s dead!” she screamed. “I stabbed the bastard in the neck, when he was a wolf.”

  “What the fuck are you on about?” His eyes scanned hers, flicking from left to right. “Geoff’s not here. He’s… He’s—”

  “Dead!” she spat, relishing the confusion in his eyes.

  “No! You’re insane.” In a flash, he whipped the pillow out from under her and pressed it over her face, his immense weight crushing her into the mattress.

  She struggled with every ounce of energy she had left in her body, but it was no use, the red mist controlled Phil and she didn’t have the physical strength to repel it.

  His was saying something, but his words were muffled through the pillow. She thought she caught “die up there”, but she wasn’t sure, focused as she was on trying to free herself and not releasing her last breath, now burning in her lungs.

  The force being applied to her face was crushing, and even though she wanted to scream, she knew that would release any remaining oxygen. The realisation that her body was shutting down sparked an animal instinct reminiscent of that which drove her to defeat the wolf in the mountains. She gritted her teeth and clawed at his arms for all she was worth. As she struggled, she became aware that something was coursing through her veins—adrenaline-like, but different—something she couldn’t pinpoint, but her strength was definitely returning.

  Then something pricked her arm. The needle? As she pushed against Phil, she visualised her IV port coming loose. She reached across her chest, scraping his skin while sliding beneath him, yanked the needle free, then, with her new surge in strength, jabbed it up in a roundhouse movement she’d seen many times in movies he’d forced her to watch. She connected and the effect was immediate—the pressure lifting from her face and body.

  The gawping inhalation nearly burst her lungs it was so fierce, but the relief was enormous. She flung the pillow off the bed, coughing and gagging as she searched the room for Phil. He stood there, over at the opposite bed, his hand covering the side of his neck, his face white, as if he’d seen a ghost. Blood seeped out between his fingers. She must have hit the mark.

  A murderous rage she’d never seen before radiated from him—his brows down, his eyes locking on her—morphing into pure-psycho mode. He ran towards her, eating the distance between them in what felt like a split-second. When his hands locked onto her throat, her instincts kicked in and she grabbed the glass of water from the bedside locker, then growled as she smashed it into the side of his face. It shattered and he shot back, blood pouring from the wound.

  He roared as he used both hands to cover his neck and face, then groaned and cursed as he picked shards of glass from his shredded cheek.

  “My face! My face!”

  Erin rolled off the side of the bed and dragged her leg behind her, trying to create distance, but there was nowhere to go with him between her and the ward entrance.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

  “What’s going on in here?” Nurse Barkley shouted as she stormed onto the ward, the lights flicking on. Her eyes widened at the sight that met her. “Security! Security!”

  Phil grabbed his jacket from the bed and dashed for the door, but the nurse took the brave option and blocked his exit, standing in the middle of the doorway, both arms out.

  “Get the fuck out of my way, woman.”

  “Not on my watch, Mister. Just what the hell is going on here?” She looked past him to Erin.

  “He tried to kill me. Twice!”

  “What?” she blurted out, looking from her to Phil and back again, as if she wasn’t sure who had made the accusation.

  “I’m telling you,” Erin screamed. “He brought me up the mountains to that wolf sanctuary and left me there to be savaged.”

  Phil grabbed hold of the nurse’s waist and dragged her away from the doorway. The woman slammed into the wall and slid to the floor, obviously dazed. Phil climbed on top of her and pressed her face into the floor with his knee, holding a shard of glass to her throat, blood dripping onto her head from his gushing wounds.

  “Security will be here any second,” she screeched. “Security! Sec—” But she never got to finish, her face smashing into the floor with a thump t
hat nearly had Erin puking.

  Phil looked up at her, his glare venomous.

  “Jesus, Christ, Philip, what have you done to her?”

  “Fuck her. Fuck you all. Why didn’t you just die?”

  Her mouth fell open, but no words came.

  Doors crashed open out in the corridor. Phil flinched and got to his feet. He pointed at Erin and stepped towards her, but stopped and opted to head for the exit instead, picking his jacket up on his way. He looked back at her, took a deep breath, then turned to the doorway.

  As soon as the security guard stepped through, the shard of glass was shoved into his face. Erin screamed. The guy was an old man, and he fell to the ground clutching his face. Phil, bleeding profusely, glanced back at her before sprinting out of the ward and down the corridor. A door slammed and alarms rang, and she knew he’d escaped into the darkness of the night.

  SIXTEEN

  Six months had passed—six full moons—since the child’s frenetic entrance into this world. Erin’s recovery was complete. She could walk now without the use of a crutch or cane, and her doctors had been nothing less than amazed at her rapid recovery. But they didn’t know about the lycan blood teeming its way through her veins. Yet while her visible wounds were healed, beneath the surface many scars remained—scars that would always remind her of the day her life changed forever, the day she went down to hell and looked her demons in the eye. On that day, she overcame everything thrown at her. She’d faced the ultimate test and could now hold her head high.

  “Another drink, love?” Joseph Greene asked, his raspy voice interrupting her thoughts. These days, she spent most of her time at the family holiday home by Lough Drumard, just outside the countryside town of Oghill, another plot of land her father owned. The rear veranda overlooked an absolute majesty of still, clear water and forested hills.

  Those hills beyond the lake met the early-evening sky, creating a summer backdrop that many holiday-home owners spent the season admiring and painting. The landscape, covered in forest and full of wildlife, was nothing less than breathtaking. Erin looked up and smiled. “Sure. Thanks, Daddy.”

  He poured red wine into the glass parked beside her deckchair.

  Baby Toby slept soundly in the family Silver Cross pram, its stainless-steel frame still as strong as the day it was brought home, four generations ago from a market somewhere in Dublin City.

  She glanced up and caught the look of affection in her father’s eyes.

  “Your mother would’ve loved this,” he said, sitting into his chair. “She loved it up here.”

  “I know, Daddy. She always liked the peace and quiet.”

  He sipped his wine and leaned forward. “My life was way too busy for her. I never appreciated our time together.” He shook his head in a sad, slow movement. “I just didn’t see all of this coming. But, bless her, she gave me this exceptional gift.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing scarring in the shape of a bite mark. Then, he swirled his wine and held it to his nose, closed his eyes, and sniffed. “Best kiss she ever gave me. Bliss.”

  Something banged around the front of the house, but it evoked no shock from either of them. Every knock at their door was expected, with uninvited visitors rarely calling. This would be a delivery of tomorrow’s first print, so Joseph Greene could stay ahead of his rivals in a business world that took no prisoners. It was the only sidestep he took from his off-the-grid existence here in the Cavan lakes, where no mobile phones or computers were tolerated.

  “I’ll grab it.” he said, springing out of the chair with a youthful exuberance—a display of vigour unexpected for a man of his age.

  Erin smiled at his confident walk—the same energy flowed through her body as the next full moon drew near. She took a deep breath of clean evening air and leaned over to look in the pram. Toby was tucked under a blue, knitted blanket, and slept with a cheeky smirk on his face.

  Dusk sent its golden rays across the lake, the last beads of daylight preparing to slip behind the hills. It was always around this time that she would look at him and shed a tear. Little Toby had the look of his father—something that hurt her to the core. Philip. She still loved him, but not like before, and it helped to take time out to focus on his horrible deeds, even if harking back to that time kept her hooked to the past.

  She was sure it would all pass, in time.

  Joseph returned with the newspaper tucked under his arm and a fresh bottle of wine in hand. He pointed to the label, but Erin wasn’t interested in what vineyard it came from. Italy, France, South Africa, it didn’t matter to her.

  He returned to his chair. “Now, let’s see what tomorrow has to offer.” He opened the paper and snapped it into shape, a sound she remembered well from her childhood. There were always newspapers, usually open at the business page.

  She stared at the darkening sky. Another day was nearing its end, with the light leaving the land.

  Something on the far side of the lake caught her attention. The hairs on her forearms prickled as she squinted, not sure she was seeing it. In the distance, a pack of wolves moved along the treeline—what looked to be three adults and four cubs making their way to the water.

  Her stomach lurched and the hairs shot up on the back of her neck. A daydream, surely?

  She honed in on them, seeing their thick, grey fur ruffle in the breeze rolling down the hill. After her initial reaction, she realised she wasn’t afraid. They weren’t here for her or her baby. Once they lapped up their fill from the lake, they disappeared into the trees.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Joseph said, his eyebrows raised, nose twitching—as if he could smell them. “It’s the closest I’ve ever seen them to the lake.”

  Erin didn’t reply, not sure he was seeing the same as her.

  “You know they call me that in the boardroom, don’t you?”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “The Wolf.” He sat up, chest out, proud as punch. “You do know it was a were that killed your mother, don’t you?”

  Erin said nothing, not sure what to share with her father, deciding to allow him continue.

  “A werewolf,” he clarified, just in case she misheard him. “I never did manage to track the fucker down. But I suppose that’s the paradox, isn’t it? He took her away from me, but also gave me life and the strength to live it the way I want. Heavy lies the crown, so to speak.”

  The truth about her mother’s death hit Erin hard, especially after her own wolf experience. Still, it took time to sink into the depths of her heart. And once it reached the point of realisation, she wanted to burst into tears at the thought of her mother’s demise. But she held it together, a new skill she’d been learning to master.

  “What do you mean, Dad? Tell me.”

  “Isn’t it obvious, darling? This gift is the gift of eternal power. One bite or tear and they can become like us. I’ve been giving it much thought since your…misadventure in the mountains. Maybe it’s time I used it to create my pack. My legacy. Our dynasty.”

  Inside, she shook her head, but outside she remained still. She understood his desire to be the best—the Alpha in him willing him on to dominate. It was something she’d become used to from her childhood. She kissed Toby on the forehead, then turned to give her father the same.

  Joseph looked at her with delight, obviously taking her silence and kiss as agreement. “I think a little piece of me rubbed off on you. I’m glad it did, because without it, you wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t have this little man to continue the legacy.”

  She stared at him for several seconds, then rubbed her calf, a comforting habit she’d adopted over the months. “Perhaps, but I’m just a…mongrel.” She looked across the lake again to the empty shore. Had they been there at all?

  Her father’s snoring made her chuckle. The man fell asleep so easily when he was away from work, especially after a glass or tw
o of wine. The sound brought childhood memories flooding back.

  Then she wondered if he’d even spoken just now, or had he been asleep all along? It didn’t matter. She sighed, remembering when she would stuff her colouring pencils up his nose while he snored, to get him to jolt awake from the fright.

  As she leaned over to move his glass of wine away from his arm, she noticed a small heading in the newspaper he still clutched: Wolfman still at large!

  She whipped the paper from her father’s hands, giving him the same kind of fright he used to get when a pencil was shoved up his nose. Only she didn’t laugh this time, shushing him like she did Toby until he fell back to sleep. “Maybe you have rubbed off on me, Daddy, but I killed a wolf, and that was all me, without the gift.”

  The article was listed in the Bizarre World section, next to the Classifieds:

  Wolfman Still at Large!

  The incident occurred last weekend on the banks of the Nass River, in the British Columbian wilderness. Witnesses reported that a troop of boy scouts were attacked by what eye witnesses are calling a “Wolfman”.

  Scoutmaster, Peter Trembley, said he saw the beast attacking one of the boys, and as it tried to drag him off into the woods, Trembley opened fire with his rifle.

  “I’m pretty sure I hit it twice. It dropped the kid and scurried off into the dark, but not before stopping to take a good long stare at me. I froze with fear. Never seen anything like it before. Them eyes. We’ve encountered bears and wolves out here before and managed to scare them off, but this thing was desperate, hungry, and had a pain behind its eyes. I had no choice but to reload and fire again.”

  Following on from the interview with Mr Trembley, investigators on the scene found unusual trails which included human footprints mixed in with others from a larger beast. It is unclear if this is a hoax gone wrong or a genuine Big Foot case. Peter went on to describe the creature:

  “It was huge. A towering six-foot-six easy. Covered in black and grey hair. Although it was slightly bald on top, I knew this from the full moon’s reflection that bounced of it.”