by Terry Yates
He saw a shadow move under the door and stop, completely blocking out the light. Could it be listening at the door? For a moment, there was dead silence. Once again, the only thing that he could hear was his own heartbeat, which amazingly enough to him, sounded even louder than it had before. He heard another growl followed by an equally sinister snarl. They were talking to each other. Kyler noticed something scratching at the bottom of the door. It was a foot claw that was moving against the door, making a loud screeching “fingernail on a chalkboard” sound. Kyler could feel his teeth growing hair at the horrendous sound. The only thing worse was a washer or dryer being dragged across a cement floor.
He kept watching the shadow, not making a sound, not moving a muscle. After a moment, the shadow in front of the door moved away. A moment later, another shadow moved past the door, and then the other. Were they leaving? He heard what sounded like footsteps…bare footsteps, like you heard when someone was walking around a swimming pool. The footsteps were becoming fainter and fainter, as did the growls and snarls. They were leaving.
So what now, he thought. Should he stay where he was and ride it out until dawn, or should he get up and continue to look for Shelly? Common sense mixed with a shitload of fear, told him to stay where he was. Screw Shelly. If she didn’t want to be found, to hell with her, it was Kayla that he was thinking about now. Could he just sit there knowing the baby was left on her own in a building with three werewolves in it? Three of them. Who was the third one?
Kyler stayed on the floor motionless until he was sure that the werewolves were gone, before even attempting to stand up. He put his hand on the door handle. What if it was just a ploy to get him to open the door? What if one of those things had stopped and was standing right next to the door? He had seen enough nature shows to know how clever wolves can be.
He was pretty sure that the werewolves were gone, but fear kept him paralyzed.
“You can do this, Kyler,” he told himself, his hand twisting the handle.
When the door handle could go no further, he closed his eyes and took one last deep breath.
“Pull, God dammit! Pull!” he gasped, still holding his breath.
His hand was shaking so hard against the door handle that it jiggled, making a clacking sound. He wanted to smile. If they’d heard his hand shaking, they would’ve just broken down the door and taken him.
He pulled on the door and opened it a crack, allowing one eye to peer through the opening. He could tell that the hall was empty in front of him. When he looked down, he could see bits of cinder block littering the floor. He opened the door just enough to poke his head through. First, he looked toward the end of the corridor to see if the werewolves had disappeared. They had. Next, he looked to his right to find the dead end of the hallway littered with rubble. It almost looked like a cave-in.
He slipped out of the room, leaving the door open just a tad in case he had to jump back in. He turned to look at the wall itself. Jesus! Those things had knocked the whole wall down. How had they gotten in, he wondered.
Kyler stepped over a cinder block and peered into the darkness where he saw a spiral staircase. These son-of-bitches used the stairs? What had they been doing down there? Was that their new lair or whatever wolf homes were called? He didn’t know and he really didn’t care at that point. Kyler had no intention of going down those stairs. He didn’t want to be halfway up or down the stairs when the Three Little Werewolves came home. His best bet was to try and get back to the sleeping quarters, make sure everything was okay there, and then go and try to find Zack and Rob Olsen if they hadn’t returned already.
Kyler turned from the wall, and was about to step over another cinderblock, when he heard a noise echoing from down the stairway. He probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, if it hadn’t been for the echo. Kyler turned back to the large hole and stuck his head inside. He’d hardly gotten his head through the gap, when he heard it again. Whatever was making the noise must be over a hundred feet down. He was still having trouble discerning what the noise was, so he stepped through the hole and onto the landing, almost falling as he blindly stepped on a broken cinderblock, slightly twisting his ankle in the process. He lifted his foot up off the ground and twisted it in a circle, trying to make sure that the ankle was okay. It was.
As he stood on the landing, he began to hear the faint noise again, but this time, he knew what it was, and a tremendous feeling of dread came over him. It was a baby crying…and it was coming from a long way down.
“No…no…no…” he moaned, knowing full well that he was about to go down those stairs.
He moved to the first stair and placed his hand on the banister. It was cold to the touch. He was going to have to move…and fast. He was going to get down there as quickly as his legs would take him, find Kayla, take Kayla, and then haul his ass back up the stairs After that…well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
“Okay, Will Robinson,” he said softly. “Let’s follow the sound.”
“We’d better do this,” Ariella told them.
“But it’s just us in here,” Lauren came back. “We need to wait for the others.”
“She’s right,” Michael said. He was leaning against the door, holding his splinted leg to the side, trying to keep the weight off of it. “We should at least wait a little longer.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Ariella told them, stacking a cot against the door.
“But, Mother…” Lauren whined.
“If someone comes knocking on the door, we’ll let them in. It won’t take long to undo all of this.”
Lauren looked at Michael, who could only nod his head in agreement. They had no choice. Sgt. Cohen had told him to barricade the door as soon as he left, and that was probably the right thing for them to do. Dr. O’Hearley was right. If someone needed to be let in, it wouldn’t take long to move the cots and the chairs away from the door…unless of course, they were running.
The trio of werewolves moved down the hallway. They were hungry and needed to feed. They knew that there were two-leggers in the building somewhere. They had left the two babies in their lair. One of the male werewolves had wanted to eat the human child, but the other two had stood up to it. They needed to protect the two-legger pup until it was ready to become one of them. It had not been safe to do so after turning. Had the leader of the pack or its mate bitten the child, they might not have been able to stop themselves from tearing it to shreds. But the smell of the two-legger cub had gotten their blood lust to frenzy level. They wanted two-legger flesh for both themselves, and for the canine pup. It would need to feed as well. They knew that there were two-leggers close. They had smelled one when they had broken through the door, but their sense of smell was dull after having been down in the lair with the decaying two-leggers. But now…now they could smell them throughout the building.
The werewolves moved down the hall, the leader of the new pack, walking in front, its head only about two-and-a-half-feet from the ceiling. The other male and the leader’s mate followed closely behind him, snarling at one another. The she-wolf was much smaller than the other male, but she did not fear it. She knew no fear like she did when she was a two-legger. She was now the mate of the new pack leader.
The leader of the pack stopped walking and lifted its nose into the air. It smelled two-legger flesh and there was more than one. It howled at the prospect of feasting. The other two began to howl with their leader. They too smelled the two-leggers.
The leader began to move quickly down the hall. It swung its giant fist at each door that it passed, knocking each one off of its hinges. The other two would look inside the room for any humans that might be hiding. Each door splintered and crashed inside the room as the leader passed. Its blood was boiling from lack of food, and smelling the two-leggers had raised its bloodlust to fever pitch. With each door that it passed, it swung harder and harder, the doors now splintering in two as it hit them.
“Oh no…” Ariella whispered sof
tly.
She was frozen to the spot, as were Michael and Lauren. They had heard not one, but several werewolves howling in the hallway.
“They’re here!” Lauren cried.
Michael couldn’t speak. He was having the same frightened feeling that he’d had when he’d almost shot Lauren just a half hour before when he had thought that Lauren, Ariella, and Joe had been a werewolf. But things were a little different now, because this time, he knew for sure, that there were werewolves in the corridor and they were headed their way.
“I’m scared, Mother,” Lauren said, quivering.
Ariella moved away from the door and to her daughter’s side. She reached down, put her arms around Lauren’s shoulders, and pulled her to her breast.
“I am, too,” she replied. She only hoped that it would be quick.
Lauren kept her arms around her mother’s waist, but pulled back a little, and looked at Michael, who stood by himself, his head down. She removed one arm from Ariella’s waist and held it out to Michael. She stood with her arm out, beckoning him to her with a comforting smile. He paused for a moment, feeling awkward even under these circumstances, but if he had to die, he would rather be with someone than alone.
Michael limped over to them, timidly hesitating as he reached them. He slowly moved into the crook of Lauren’s arm who pulled him into the circle. Ariella extended her arm as well, and the two of them pulled Michael into the fold. He had never felt this feeling of caring before, either from his parents, or in himself. All of his life he had seen parents hug their children like this. He couldn’t believe that most kids his age hated it when their parents did this to them in public. How could anyone not enjoy this sensation?
The floor began to shake as the werewolves moved ever closer to them, the crash of the splintering doors becoming increasingly louder.
“What are we going to do?” Lauren asked, looking up into her mother’s eyes.
“Our only hope is Joe,” she answered. “And he’s not in very good shape.
“Where is Joe?” Lauren asked, pulling away from Ariella, and looking around the room. They hadn’t noticed that the dog wasn’t there. When did he leave? Where did he go?
“He’s not here?” Ariella asked, separating herself from Lauren and Michael.
She also began to search the room.
“Here, Boy,” Lauren beckoned. “Here Joe.”
Michael’s heart sank, and when he looked up at Ariella, he could see that her heart was sinking, too. Their hero and savior was gone. Elvis has left the building, Folks. They were on their own now.
They heard another door destroyed…then another…then another…each one becoming louder as the werewolves drew nearer. They were just down the hall now, getting closer all the time. Ariella began to pull the cots and the chairs away from the door as quickly as she could.
“What are you doing, Mother?” Lauren asked her.
Lauren looked at Michael who stood dumbstruck. Dr. O’Hearley was removing the barricade! They heard another crash, then another. They couldn’t be more than six or seven doors away now. Crash! Crash! Crash!
After she pulled the last cot away, she moved to both Lauren and Michael and placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
“When I leave…” she started.
“No!” Lauren tried to scream, but her mother covered her mouth.
There was another crash.
“When I leave,” she continued, “I’m going to turn off the light and I want you both to move to the far side of the room and stay down.”
“Mother, you…”
“There’s no time,” she said tersely now.
Another crash! The werewolves were almost upon them now. They could hear them grunting in anticipation. Lauren was crying softly, but there was no time for sentiment. The monsters were only about sixty feet away now.
“Goodbye, offspring of the female gender,” she whispered, taking Lauren’s wet face in her hands. She kissed her daughter and as she pulled back, they could see that for probably the first time in her adult life, Ariella O’Hearley had tears in her eyes.
“Take care of my baby,” she told Michael smiling. “Take care of yourself, too.”
Michael nodded, tears welling up in his eyes, too.
“No…” Lauren cried softly.
“Now stay down,” she said, wiping the mucus from her nose with her hand.
She smiled a sad smile, and then turned out the light. She peeked through the door, took one last look at the two children, and then opened the door just enough to slip through it.
Michael and Lauren watched as she squeezed through the door, closing it behind her.
Ariella stepped into the hallway. As she did, the werewolves stopped for a moment, either out of shock that the she-two-legger would simply walk out of its hiding place to be eaten, or out of respect for the enemy who brazenly walked out to meet them and face its death.
Ariella looked at them for a moment. The three monsters were so large that they took up most of the entire hallway, their heads blocking out the light from the ceiling.
“So, tell me…” Ariella began in her best psychiatrist voice. “Did your mothers breast feed you or did you have to take it from the bottle?”
With this, Ariella O’Hearley turned and began to sprint down the corridor. As she ran, the werewolves lifted their heads to the ceiling and let out several loud and long howls. The chase was on.
Inside, Michael pulled Lauren away from the door as they heard the creatures take off down the hallway after Ariella. Lauren started to scream, but Michael put his hand over her mouth. She tried to fight him, but she was still too weak from the appendicitis. His leg throbbed as he pulled her backward away from the door.
Ariella had surprised herself with the speed that she was moving down the corridor. They had given her a head start and she was taking advantage of it. She made a quick right turn and continued to sprint as fast as her legs allowed. The werewolves rounded the corner no more than three seconds after she did. She could hear their large hind claws scraping against the tile as they made the turn. She took another right, followed closely by the werewolves. This hallway was too long and she knew she would never make it to the end. All she could hope for was that she took the beasts far enough away from the children so that maybe they would either forget about them, or possibly one of the soldiers would come along and take them to safety.
She could hear them moving up close behind her, panting and grunting. She wasn’t sure but she thought that she could feel hot breath blowing against the back of her neck. Ariella got no more than ten feet before one of the beasts slammed into her back and knocked her to the floor, face first. Her glasses fell from her face and flew across the floor as the beast landed on top of her. As she felt a set of razor sharp teeth clamp down onto the back of her neck, and rip her flesh away, she thought of Locklear and Lauren…
Inside, Lauren was lying face down on the floor with Michael on top of her. They heard a loud, long scream of pain echo through the corridor. Michael instinctively put his hands over Lauren’s ears and held them there until the screaming stopped.
Lauren began to whimper as Michael rolled off of her and put his arm around her shoulder.
“She’s gone,” she cried softly.
“Yeah…but she saved our lives doing it,” Michael said softly, in her ear. “That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
Michael pulled Lauren as close as he could to him without hurting her. The two of them lay in the darkness, the only sound was that of Lauren softly sobbing into her arms. Michael knew that Dr. O’Hearley had probably just bought them time, and that sooner or later, they were going to have to make some sort of escape attempt. They’d had so much trouble with just the one werewolf…now there were several of them. How were they going to kill all of them…or could they kill all of them? Michael squeezed Lauren’s shoulder once, and then laid his head on her back.
“Where are you, ya’ bastard?” Potts asked, tryin
g to look through the gap in the two steel doors. The four of them had shoved desks, chairs, computers, and computer monitors in front of the door, as well as two couches that had been in the small lobby. Potts had always been surprised that there was a lobby, because no one who didn’t work there never seemed to stay inside the building long enough to sit down.
“What do you think he’ll do, Colonel?” FranAnne asked.
The large hole was at stomach level, so the two of them were down on one knee, with their rifles cocked and ready. Potts had sent Hawkins back up to the roof to cover them from above. His orders were to shoot at the thing as soon as he saw it. Wherever they heard the shots coming from, would tell them where the werewolf was located.
“I don’t know what he’ll do?” Potts finally answered. “There’s one thing that I’ve learned in all of my years of soldiering, and that’s never try to predict what your enemy is gonna do at any point in battle, because once you start doing that, he’ll let you down every time. We’re in defense mode right now, Private, so we’re in the catbird seat for the moment. It has to come to us if it wants us.”
“It does want us, doesn’t it?” FranAnne asked him.
“And how. That thing is a one-man army and it doesn’t like to lose…to anyone. It’s in its nature to always be victorious. In its mind…if it has a mind, that is…it’s king of the jungle.”
The two continued looking through the hole in awkward silence. FranAnne had never been a real gabber, and neither had Potts.
“Once again, Private,” Potts started, “that was a hell of a shot you made out there.”
“Thank you, Sir.” FranAnne replied, blushing.
“I mean it. That took a lot of balls…or whatever you have, to make that shot. You might make corporal after a shot like that, and who knows…maybe get a medal.”
“What will the medal be for, Sir…killing a werewolf in the line of duty?”