Title

by Stanley, Jacob

  Of course, he reminded himself. It's probably overly optimistic to even let myself spend much time worrying about this. I might not live through the day, and if I don’t it won't matter whether or not I'm infected with something.

  The best way to stay alive was to escape, but how?

  He couldn’t change shape, And his enemies could change, or at least Myra could, and he was willing to bet her brother could too—normal human beings, even giant ones, couldn’t lift cars off the ground like they weighed about 50 pounds. So they were both shape shifters of some sort, but not like him…

  Who were they? How did they end up with soldiers—or mercenaries or whatever—in their employee?

  The optics of the whole arrangement—the way they acted, the way they talked, everything else—made him think of the creepy internet conspiracy videos he’d seen about reptilian invaders and crap like that.

  These people were clearly involved in something pretty big, and they were organized.

  Could they be part of some cult? Or could they actually be extraterrestrial invaders, disguised as humans?

  Or maybe both?

  Regardless, he was royally screwed. He was going to end up in some dark hole somewhere. Or maybe an incinerator.

  After they got through torturing him.

  He was pretty scared. He didn’t want to be, but he was.

  I got cocky, he thought.

  All this time with The Mask, he had never had any real trouble. Everything had been so easy…

  But you knew this time. You knew she was gonna whip you.

  Yes he had, and he should’ve done something else the first time he fought her, in the woods. Something smarter than just running forward like a maniac. If he’d been thinking, he could’ve come up with several other ways to deal with the situation. Any sort of distraction might’ve been enough to let him rescue the wounded woman on the ground without risking a direct confrontation.

  Just pure arrogance… I couldn’t face the possibility that someone out there was tougher than me.

  And now he would have to pay for that.

  Whoever these people were, they’d want to know how he did what he did. The woman, Myra, had already made that very clear.

  He could tell them, he supposed. It wouldn’t do any harm because they wouldn’t be able to use The Mask, no matter what. It only worked for him. He would explain that to them, but they’d probably try to use it anyway, and they would think he was lying when it didn’t work.

  Then they’d probably torture him some more.

  No good options, he thought. None.

  He would just have to get lucky.

  2 - Church

  About an hour later, the car slowed, and turned onto a rougher surface that made him bounce around in the trunk.

  Gravel.

  And then, abruptly, they stopped.

  Oh crap.

  He heard a series of clicks—car doors opening—and then heavy footsteps. A moment later, the trunk opened, and the light of the sun hit Kevin in the eyes. After the total darkness it hurt, and he had to squint.

  When his vision adjusted, he saw that the woman’s brother was standing there, hands clasped behind his back, staring down at Kevin with a friendly expression. Behind him were two of the gun-toting security dudes.

  “Hello there Mister Lycanthrope,” said the huge man, with the same strange accent his sister used; vaguely British, sort of, but with more of a bite to it. Certain vowels were flatter, others sharper.

  Lycanthrope?, Kevin mused. They think I’m a werewolf? Are werewolves actually a real thing?

  He supposed he looked sort of like a werewolf when he shifted into fighting mode, though wolf DNA wasn’t actually part of the blend he used.

  The man continued, “Glad to see that you’re sticking to your human shape for the time being. If you don’t give us any trouble, we would prefer to keep you alive. For study if for nothing else.”

  Kevin couldn’t think of much to say to that, so he just kept his mouth zipped.

  “I need to get you out of this trunk and take you inside, but I’m afraid you might try to cause a ruckus. Will you promise to behave yourself?”

  Kevin shrugged. “What choice do I have?”

  “Well I could just beat you senseless first and then carry you in.”

  “I guess you could.”

  “Yes, it wouldn’t be difficult. So will you behave?”

  Kevin sighed. For some reason he hated the idea of giving an inch to these people.

  “Answer me,” said the man, his expression growing stern. “Quickly.”

  This is a stupid moment to pick a fight. I have zero chance of accomplishing anything right now.

  He swallowed back his pride, made eye contact with his captor, and slowly nodded.

  “You’re saying you’ll behave?” asked the man.

  Kevin nodded again.

  The man’s smile returned. “Very good. Now, I’m going to free your legs so you can walk, because it would be awkward and embarrassing to carry you around like a little child. But remember, if you make any funny moves I’ll not hesitate to slap you silly. And I slap harder than my sister, believe me.”

  - - -

  Once the big man had finished unfastening the restraints on his feet, Kevin sat up and looked around.

  They were in the parking lot of a big church, painted gray, with a steeply sloped black roof. Behind the church a massive fenced-in graveyard covered an area of rolling hills, and beyond that there were huge mountains.

  The church looked awful, like it ought to be condemned and torn down. All the paint had flaked off on the outside, and there were saggy places in the roof. The grass all around the place was knee high, and the windows were boarded up.

  Without the use of his hands, Kevin had some trouble getting up onto his knees and climbing out of the trunk. None of the other men offered to help.

  When he stepped down onto the gravel the first thing Kevin realized was that the black man’s height was even more amazing than he’d realized. The dude was so tall that Kevin barely came up to his belly button.

  Definitely well over eight feet, which would probably put him comfortably into the range of the Guinness book record holders.

  “Are you feeling well enough to walk?” said the man.

  Kevin looked (way, way) up, gave a shrug of his shoulders and nodded.

  “Good then. You lead the way. Walk slowly up to the church door and then enter. We’ll be close behind, and remember, there are guns aimed at you. For all you know, there might even be silver bullets in them!”

  Silver bullets? Really?

  Kevin looked at the guy. Was he serious?

  Maybe? Eh… No… No, there was the slightest glint of humor in the eyes.

  Just a joke then. Probably.

  “Now move along,” said the huge man. “Time’s wasting.”

  Kevin had only taken a few shuffling steps when he heard the sound of a car approaching, followed shortly by the crackle and pop of gravel as someone turned into the church parking lot.

  He slowed his walking pace, glanced over his shoulder, saw his own car roll up beside the black Town Car and stop. A moment later, Myra got out, and seeing her from this distance, at this angle, in these circumstances, he was suddenly struck by the fact that she was a really attractive woman. Way above average.

  Like, if he was walking down the street and passed her, and had no idea who (or what) she was. With the way she was dressed right now, and the way she was carrying herself, he’d definitely do the whole head-turn thing, and start drooling like an idiot.

  “Are you feeling alright?” she asked, her voice smooth and friendly.

  He shrugged. “I guess I’ve been better.”

  “At least you’re not dead, and believe me, you should be thankful for that.”

  Kevin didn’t say anything, but he didn’t doubt her.

  She glanced over at her brother, “Did he give you any trouble?”

  The man shook his he
ad. “Not at all. In fact, he’s been very cooperative. I begin to wonder if he really is a lycanthrope at all, or if, perhaps, you were just imagining it.”

  “I never said, for sure that he was a lycanthrope. He’s not human, not entirely anyway, but my comments about lycanthropy were pure speculation.”

  “I hope your speculations were accurate,” said the man. “Mother would love to have a real werewolf for the zoo.”

  A zoo where you would put werewolves? Who in the heck are these people?

  Myra gave a noncommittal roll of her shoulders and started towards the steps. One of the guards prodded Kevin in the back with the barrel of a rifle, urging him to continue walking.

  The big man opened the church door and went inside. Kevin followed.

  The interior was much better than the exterior. It was well lighted, and clean, with two rows of shiny wooden pews.

  The place had wood floors and wood paneled walls, and a high ceiling. It smelled a little bit like a pine forest, and a little bit like sawdust. Fluorescent tubes overhead cast a pleasant glow over everything, and from the cold temperatures within, it seemed like the thermostat on the air-conditioner was set too low.

  Overall the room was a pretty big surprise. Based on the outside he never would’ve guessed this place had electric power, much less central heat and air.

  He noted that there was no cross or other Christian iconography anywhere to be seen, which was strange, but other than that it looked like a nice modern facility; as nice as any small church he’d ever seen.

  Through a combination of words and prods from the rifle, the guards guided him between the pews, out through a side door on the left, and down a little hallway that led to an administrative area. This section looked totally different than the main church, with thick red carpets, a drop ceiling, and bland drywall, painted white.

  He passed a doorway leading to an office and another leading to a classroom that he assumed must be for Sunday school.

  At the end of the hall they came to a closed door on the right. Everyone waited while Myra’s brother, who actually had to hunch to keep from banging his head on the ceiling, walked ahead. He fished a key-chain out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and reached in to flick up a light switch.

  Kevin peered in. What he saw was basically a closet, except that it was as large as some people’s living rooms. The shelves were filled with all sorts of things—Kevin saw cleaning chemicals, and old tools. There were numerous boxes in the floor filled with assorted random canned goods and other non-perishable foods.

  The black man walked on in, and bent down, fiddling with the edge of the carpet at the far side of the room, and then peeling back a large square section of it.

  Underneath, there was a wooden trapdoor made of plywood with a groove cut into one side to serve as a handle. The man raised it, revealing a set of wooden steps leading down to a basement.

  He gestured towards the steps. “This is where you’ll be staying.”

  3 - Bars

  The steps led down to a small dark room about six feet across with a doorway on the left. Which led to another stairwell and another set of steps—these made from welded iron—descending 20 more feet to the actual basement floor.

  What Kevin found at the bottom surprised him a great deal. He'd been expecting some sort of dark and dank dungeon—dirt floor, garbage, dust. But it was nothing like that at all.

  Instead there was a huge chamber, constructed entirely from poured concrete, with recessed lighting in the ceilings. It had the look of some sort of government facility.

  In the center of the room there was a huge metallic thing shaped like a hula-hoop that was covered in weird heiroglyphs—to Kevin it resembled some overblown prop from a science fiction movie about ancient alien artifacts. All along the walls there were machines with flashing buttons, screens, levers, and switches.

  Kevin eyed everything in stunned silence, feeling like his eyes were just about ready to pop out of his head. It was amazing, almost inconceivable really, that such a place could exist underneath the ruined church without anyone's knowledge.

  He was so dumbfounded by the sights on display that he would’ve liked to stand around for a while and take everything in. But he only got the briefest possible glimpse before he was rapidly ushered through the chamber towards a little metallic door set off to one side.

  Myra’s brother had to unlock this door as well. Beyond it was a narrow hall and three holding cells of moderate size. They were the type of prison cells you'd see in an old movie, with vintage-looking iron bars. Each cell had a bed, and a clean white toilette, and a wooden bench against one wall.

  One of the cells, at the far end of the hall, was currently occupied by a young woman. She had blond hair and gray eyes that were hidden behind thick glasses. She was lanky with long arms and wore conservative clothes—kaki pants, a button-up blue blouse. A golden necklace with a cross dangling from it hung around her neck.

  Beside her a dark-haired boy, about six years old, leaned back against the wall with one thumb thrust nervously into his mouth, and a pile of toy robots scattered all over the floor in front of him.

  There were sheets hung up inside her cell, placed strategically to hide the view of the toilette from both the inside and the outside.

  The woman and the boy both looked at Kevin mutely as the guards opened his cell, shoved him in, and closed the door.

  Myra came up, leaned against the bars, and looked in on him.

  "You want out of those wrist cuffs?" she asked.

  "Do I have a choice?"

  She nodded. "Turn around, I'll take care of it."

  He did, and after about a minute she managed to unfasten all the laces.

  Once free, he brought his hands up, worked at the fingers to get the blood flowing freely again. He also looked them over to see if the strange bacterial presence from the pyramid was making itself visible in any way—redness maybe, or some sort of minor rash—but he couldn't see anything unusual.

  Myra was still standing there, studying him with those strange, orange eyes. "I have your name—or at least the name you’re using—and I plan to do a little more research today, maybe even call a few folks I know who're good at digging up details about people, to see how much more I can find out. Do you feel like telling me a few things about your personal life in advance? It might save me some time."

  Kevin said nothing.

  After a moment she spoke again, "I don't know what sort of powers you have. For all I know you might be strong enough to bend these bars and cause a whole lot of trouble for everybody. I think I probably could if anyone ever tried locking me in here. But whatever the case may be, I want you to know that your best bet right now is just to play it cool. Just go with the flow. I need you alive. My mother's a little bit irritated with me right now, and I think you'll be just the thing to cheer her up. So it's in my interest, and yours, to keep things nice and peaceful between us. Do you understand?"

  The tone of her voice; the fact that she actually thought he could be induced to cooperate after what he'd seen her doing; something about the whole idea set his teeth on edge.

  "You killed those people," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You were eating somebody's organs when I found you. That's not gonna work for me. And what you need to know is that if I can find a way to get out of here, I'm going to make you very sorry for keeping me alive. That's what I understand."

  The woman didn't seem impressed with his threat, nor did she seem angry. Instead she regarded him with even more interest. "Tough talk? That's very cute, especially now that I’ve bested you twice.”

  “I’m just itching for another shot,” he said. “But I’ve always been the stubborn type.”

  She grinned. “Another shot, huh? I’m sure we’ll get around to it eventually. What, exactly, are you anyway? Are you some kind of avenging angel? Do you protect the innocent? Help the helpless?"

  "I guess you'll just have to keep wondering what I am."


  "Yes, I suppose I will. And that's okay. I like mysteries. But later, when you're face to face with my mother, I want you to show her what you can do. If you don't give me at least that much, I'm going to be very annoyed with you. I might even have to punish you for disobedience."

  Kevin felt the rage inside grow another notch or two, and he started to tremble.

  She stepped away from the bars and tilted her head a little to the side. "I'll leave you alone to think on that for a bit. Please understand—I'm the sort of person who's very driven by curiosity, and you seem like an interesting puzzle to me. Sometimes it's fun to peel back the layers of someone new; I like it when I meet a new person and keep finding surprising things about them every day for a while. So for now, being a little bit mysterious will serve you well, at least with me. But, you absolutely have to deliver the goods when the time comes. You just have to, or you'll force my hand."

  Without another word, she turned and walked out of the cell block, closing the door at the end of the hall behind her.

  He stood there for several breaths, trying to master his anger enough to get his intellectual parts working again. And then he started puzzling over the conversation.

  Her comments had been strange—especially at the end. Was he crazy, or had she been hitting on him? It seemed like there was a sort of flirty subtext to her words.

  Pretty weird…

  He generally hated to disappoint a lady, but after seeing her murdering people and eating them, he definitely couldn’t go there.

  Still, her showing up at this place was actually pretty lucky, because she'd brought his car with her, and presumably The Mask was still in the trunk. So his best means of escape was right here, close to hand. It was at least conceivable that he might be able to find a way to get ahold of the thing. And if he could, then escape might not even be all that difficult.

  He sat down on the bed, and the woman in the other cell said, “If you need to use the toilette, let us know and we’ll hide our eyes or something."

  He nodded. "Sure."