The Wolf With the Silver Blue Hands

by Eric Ellert

  All around her, up in the man made hills, over near the water trap and along the road, baboon bodies lay rotting. They had been left here to starve, all of the animals, when the park went bankrupt, but it had been so long ago.

  "This is the Back Beyond," Karen said. She came close and held Faudron's hand as if it had been Faudron not she who had brought them here.

  Faudron pulled her hand away and wiped it off. "I don't like you."

  "No?"

  "But you can come with us."

  She stepped back as if she'd been shoved and sat down. "Thanks. I'd like that. Come on. You have to see this."

  "I don't want to." But she followed anyway.

  They came back to the visitors' center. Packs of roofing shingles in new wrappings lay against the wall.

  "This wasn't here before," Faudron said.

  "So?"

  Faudron gingerly tested the door and it swung open. Inside, yellow were painted on the floor and further in at the snack bar counter sat the mummified-bodies of earth and Nordic kids, posed as if having sodas on a Saturday.

  "Left here," Karen said, waiving her arms like a bird trying to fly out of here. "Waiting for someone to come and get them but after a while....Then the snow sets in, the windows are busted out, so there's no shelter, and no fire." She shrugged. "Maybe they ran out of matches, like the little match girl."

  "Get me out of here."

  "The Nord Faudron Falkirk died here. But for an odd or even number, so would have you. Feel lucky? I feel lucky."

  ***

  Faudron ran back the way they came, tearing her clothes as she maneuvered the tombstones and scraping her hands as she climbed back up the ravine. The rain had washed what looked like half the hill onto the road when she got to the SUV and she slipped on the mud, landing under the vehicle. Her mind assured her that werewolves would be smart-enough to get out of the rain, but she heard them calling to each other, some from the direction of town, some from along the fence.

  Karen caught up to her out of breath. "Can I go with you?"

  "Yeah. I told you."

  "But you don't really want me to."

  "What the hell does it matter? Get in."

  Faudron drove until she got to Lake End Road and turned right but when she slowed to make the turn, Karen hopped out. "Got stuff to do."

  Faudron slammed on the breaks as Karen moved in front of the car. She glowed in the headlights, her ridiculous for the woods, baby doll dress soaked and covered in leaves. "See ya at midnight."

  Then she was gone. Faudron leaned on the steering wheel, accidentally setting off the horn. If Karen had disappeared, she wouldn't have been surprised, but she hadn't. She came back in the light, smirking as if she'd just performed a good trick.

  Another howl filled the evening. Karen looked at the eight corners of the earth, then ran in the direction of the reservoir and jumped in.

  Faudron stepped on the gas and nothing happened.

  Chapter 25

  Faudron staggered home with the dawn, exhausted, the SUV far behind her, its tires slashed by wildy paws, its windows broken by biting wolves heads, one of which, she'd maimed. When dawn came, the other werewolves reverted to form and staggered back to town, too embarrassed to look at her.

  Faudron couldn't focus, she was so weary and dropped the spear when she saw her house, tore her gloves off and opened the hot armor. Soft as it was, it couldn't be pierced or squeezed. They'd tried.

  She saw two figures on the dawn lawn, one Moren, the pink and orange rays of the new born sun highlighting the blonde streaks in her hair as she cradled some kid's head against her chest.

  A funny thought popped into Faudron's head, younger girls always liked boys who looked like themselves, but the boy was so hurt she couldn't joke.

  Faudron staggered forward to help but there was blood all over Moren's hands and arms. Guilty, not guilty, who could say, but Faudron leaned towards guilty. Sister guilty? She'd have to help, no matter what. "Who is he?"

  "Was the big blue man, Shep. People called him Blue, but I think he liked it when people called him Shep better?" Moren said. "And don't ever call him crayon."

  Faudron reached out to stroke her hair. "Moren?"

  "No, Fau, I swear."

  Faudron knelt down. Blue's blood flowed past her legs and down the sloping lawn to the river. She was afraid to look. If she saw claw marks, she would have to ignore them, or run, or worse defend herself, but as she crawled forward, she noticed the bullet hole in his chest.

  Faudron had seen hundreds on the tv news, after Beijing was nuked in exchange for Manhattan, hundreds in films of the China War they'd fought in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Northern Australia, thousands more in the mess in Europe in the aftermath of the Turkic invasion and the French Islamic Revolution. However, those were on tv and had no scent.

  "It went right through," Moren said, stupidly pulling the bullet out of the lawn, washing it off in the run-off and holding it up in the air.

  "Who?"

  Moren pointed to the forest across the road, her face young-looking, like a kid playing dress-up.

  "I don't understand."

  "Someone ain't a wolf," Moren said.

  She kept pawing Blue's hand. Blue, Shep, whatever his name was, was back to normal size, normal eyes, normal shape, red hair slicked back like all the Nords. In the light, he might have been Moren's classmate. "Come on, Moren; we'll get you cleaned-up and figure out what to do."

  "No."

  Faudron felt sorry for her, but she knew Moren. She was playing out the last scene in The Man In The Moon, where the older sister throws herself on the dead boy's grave and the younger sister has to decide weather to forgive her or not for stealing him away.

  Faudron scanned the tree line, ran ahead and took a look around. Werewolves were stupid, ridiculous creatures. If someone out there had their wits about them, they could be beaten, but when she closed her eyes she pictured a man with a scope and a rifle. She ran back across the road. "Come on, little sister."

  "No."

  Faudron had to pull Moren away and drag her inside, tearing up the lawn as they struggled, leaving twenty-four-inch squares floating on the water on the lawn and sliding into the reservoir.

  ***

  Faudron had gotten Moren to bed and sat for ten minutes staring at the kitchen clock, completely short of a plan. The purposeless clock had Elvis legs swinging in a battery-powered wind. She'd wondered, from time to time, if the wife or the daughter or the granddaughter ever owned one. You might, you might not. Magic battery in there too. Old Elvis' purple, checked-trousers had been swinging longer than her parents' marriage had lasted, though they'd never really told the kids. Dad had the perfect job for such a secret separation. That wasn't her worry, now and she heard Moren in the shower upstairs, which calmed her.

  Rau would kill his brother; she didn't feel bad about cheering for that at all. Then they would leave this place.

  Bright lights hit the window, brighter as a second vehicle approached. By the time Faudron got outside, the Mayor, dressed like a cop, was poking at Blue's body, lifting a corner of the plastic blanket they'd covered it in, letting out a stink. "This yours?" he asked Faudron, making the hand wave.

  "It was there."

  "Aha."

  "Your sister home? Yes or no."

  Faudron turned around and shut the front door behind her. "Yes, long night. No, she hadn't been out."

  "Maybe you'll just come with me. Talk about the horse on the lawn."

  The horse carcass lay under the blanket just where Shep had been. The Mayor smiled as if daring her to disagree.

  Faudron shook because the Mayor didn't. Nothing fazed him. No, that wasn't right, nothing offended him, because he was so base, base like Kau. She pictured Kau walking in dead man's clothes, the people in town walking like zombies in a dead and forgotten world and this man, the shepherd of the town's wolves as Blue had been the shepherd of the werewolves on the island.

  Faudron laughed in hi
s face. "Accompany you, that'll be the day."

  He took a step forward. Faudron mimicked a natty person putting a tie on and he stopped as if she'd struck him, clearly afraid, surely understanding that Moren was one of the wolves of men, not one of these big dumb dogs in town he could manipulate.

  "They don't get off the island," he whispered.

  "And if they do?"

  "If they do we're all dead. Look, help me I'll help you. We got to kill the king of wolves. Not Rau. That'd be no good. You get her to bring Kau here. I know how this is going to sound, but I think we're friends. Maybe you and I should go there." He coughed up two packs a day for twenty years until he turned red and had to brace himself on one of the patrol cars.

  Splinter got out of the ambulance, pale as if he'd been up all night, spooky since the ambulance was shaped like an old hearse. "You can ride with me."

  "Hell she can," the Mayor said.

  "Specs Cardillo and Hydash ," Splinter called out.

  Two soldiers in chamois came from the pick-up and removed the Mayor's sidearm.

  "If he resists, shoot him," Splinter said the way he might say 'file it'.

  "You can't," the Mayor said.

  "I just did." Splinter crossed the lawn and put his field jacket around Faudron's shoulders. He moved to block the Mayor's view, took her face and looked in her eyes. "You, her, neither, both, he whispered."

  "It's not good."

  He backed away and gestured for her to follow, then pointed at the Mayor to tell him to shut up.

  "Where you takin' me?" Faudron asked.

  "To midnight."

  ***

  They passed the wrecked-main street; people were scattered about, windows smashed, a few stores still on fire.

  Splinter stopped at the Sheriff's office, the Mayor right behind them, jabbering.

  He led Faudron into a cell and locked the door. "I'm sorry, can I get you anything?"

  "No."

  "You can go now," the Mayor said.

  Splinter smiled, went to the gun rack and pulled down a shot gun. "Shells, please."

  "In the drawer," the Mayor said, smiling as if they were going to take care of Faudron now that witnesses were away.

  "Thank you." Splinter took his time loading the shotgun and when he was finished, he pointed it at the Mayor. "Leave."

  "I do the telling around here."

  "You haven't been out of town lately, have you? Some six cities were nuked. There isn't much good farm land left and no time or patience left for this place. It costs money to upkeep. There's only two people in this town who could have shot that boy. I'm leaning toward you. Your Schumer card, now."

  When the Mayor handed it over, Splinter placed the card in the microwave by the coffee maker for a second and handed it back. "I'll expect you to report back here at midnight, plus one minute."

  "I got friends outside. I run this place; you think I don't but I do."

  "Without the card, you have no friends. That's how it is outside now."

  "Midnight plus one and then what?" the Mayor asked.

  "I'm not sure yet, but that's what my friends say. It ends good or it ends bad, but it ends. And after it's all over, there'll be nothing but a big puddle where you pukes used to live. Go."

  When the Mayor had made a dramatic exit, Splinter made a pot of coffee, pouring instant coffee into a Mr. Coffee. "You remember Joe Dimagio?"

  "No, he a guy you knew?"

  "Everyone knew Joe."

  "And me, if the night's no good?" Faudron asked.

  Splinter handed her a cup of coffee through the bars and didn't answer for the longest time. "I think I'll let you go."

  "And if Rau fails?"

  "Did you see the silver-colored boxes outside the fence, along the road?"

  "Yeah."

  "They come. They're unmanned vehicles, of a sort. They use them for combat operations in a diseased, contaminated environment. They're robot dogs"

  "That doesn't sound too good."

  "It if was good, it'd be on a post card," Splinter said.

  "And if Rau succeeds?"

  "There's still the matter of murder on murder on murder. And the giving away of kids."

  "If I become like them, don't let me out."

  "NASA never left a man in space. They lost a few up there for lack of a better word, you know the drill, but they never abandoned one. I think they'd do anything for you now. For what your father just did for them. That's a broad interpretation of my orders, but." He opened the door and stepped back.

  "What my dad do?"

  "Word is he gained us the friendship of the Nords. What's left of 'em."

  "Is that good, considering?" Faudron asked.

  "Better than bein' their enemy, don't you think?"

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out two Schumer cards. "Two nice W-Ms passing through with a convoy donated their cards. Might give you a start." He went to the desk and returned with a big wad of cash. "I think most of this belongs to you and your sister, anyway."

  "I don't get you."

  "There was a guy who trucked out your logs?" Splinter asked.

  "Yeah, I think so."

  "There ain't now, found him in the reservoir last week."

  "Thank you," Faudron said.

  "Faudron, don't thank me till midnight tonight." He put on his flack-jacket and lay the shotgun back on the rack but didn't remove the shells or lock the case.

  ***

  And midnight came, howls outside, wails in English turning to animal sounds and the smell of blood from wounds, but she saw nothing from her view out the window. She almost envied them, no rules, no regrets, no conscience. Splinter must have noticed, because he shook his head as if Faudron ought to know better.

  She did. She hoped Moren wasn't out there.

  The long night passed with little conversation. When daylight came, Splinter unlocked the front door. "I'd go with you but it's going to be day soon. Mayor'll try something. If I'm here, it's easier for me to keep them in town. They won't put up with him outside. He thinks they will but they won't."

  "What he want here?"

  "People whisper he thinks that if he eats the Queen of the Wolves of Men's flesh, he will rule them."

  "You said Queen, Rau hunts the king."

  "Rau's an ass. Come back this way."

  "Can I bring Moren?"

  "I rather insist."

  Faudron got to the door, not sure if Splinter really knew about the horse and the boy. "There'll be trouble without Shep, won't there be?"

  "Blood. There'll be a lot of that. The pig truck didn't make it to the island. That hasn't happened before. They'll come."

  "And Rau?"

  "I liked Rau. But the E.Ts ain't tellin' all they know. Like I said, he's an ass."

  Moren held up the money. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest?"

  "Got a personal vehicle out front; take it."

  "I need a gun," Faudron said.

  He handed her his sidearm. "Silver buckshot first round, silver over lead the rest."

  "And the spear."

  He reluctantly got it out of the lost and found locker. "Why's it have two blades?"

  "The sobs have two hearts...and none."

  Faudron got outside, not a soul about. The sewers must have backed up because brackish water flowed over the curb and onto the sidewalks. Queen of the wolves of men, Faudron thought. She wouldn't be a match for all of them, and they'd come. They Mayor would have silver bullets. He'd better save one for himself, because Faudron swore he'd never leave this town, ever.

  Chapter 26

  Faudron pulled up home and all was ruin, the front door smashed-in as if a car had driven through it. She climbed over the debris and searched the house but Moren was gone. She heard wolves howl and checked her watch; it was five, though overcast; the sun lied; watches didn't. They'd broken the rules. What did it matter? They ran wild and they were waiting out there but she had one advantage, they had less time than she and Moren did.
r />   A howl filled the air. Another came from higher up in the hills above the road. "Shut up," Faudron shouted, but got no answer.

  Soon, from the tree line came a bark, none like it anywhere in the world and familiar, though she'd never heard it before and when the creature stepped forward, there was Moren, yellow-furred like a lioness with Moren's eyes. She stood person-like on two legs, her clothes covered in what looked like half the forest. Faudron thought of the first comic book she'd ever bought. They'd had a rack in a little country store. Something about the parents not wanting regular comics sold to their brats forced them to stack up on Carelton comics. They did stories like Sherlock Homes and Kidnapped that no self-respecting kid was interested in. In the back of the rack, she had found a Marvel Comic with two werewolves, one grey one blue, brothers, cursed to roam the earth, the good pursing the bad.

  She put her hand to her mouth, something about the fog and the scent of her sister's fur made the minute memory become somehow real. It had been this town; this general store, at a time when Moren was just an idea her mother had mentioned. "Monster," Faudron said.

  "Sister."

  "Gone." Faudron shook her head so hard her neck hurt as if the fog had rusted her bones.

  Moren whispered as if used to living in a hunted-forest. "Remember that movie with the RAF pilots in the pub?"

  "You bought it for dad."

  "He didn't like it. He watched it with you. And they sang." Moren sang. "The bells of hell go dingaling-a-ling, for you but not for me."

  Time didn't exist. The emotions could bend and twist it and make it then or now at will. Faudron decided to pretend she'd just arrived home. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Please come in."

  Chapter 27

  One bright light on a telephone pole was the only illumination on the island's parade ground. "Old friend, would you die with me today?" Rau asked.