by Terry Yates
Zack kept the gun aimed at the werewolves as he took Rob’s arm and began to slowly walk backwards. He saw the lead werewolf let out a loud roar, before they all turned their heads to the ceiling and began to howl in unison, the loudness of it, almost petrifying Zack.
As they continued to move slowly backwards, Zack felt Rob’s arm tense up. Rob had been moving his feet backwards with Zack, but now they seemed to have stopped in place.
“Come on, Dad,” he said softly, pulling on his father’s arm.
But Rob wasn’t moving with him. His feet had remained planted and now it almost seemed like they were pulling against him. Zack looked at Rob who was staring at the werewolves, but there was something different about his gaze. It no longer looked as if he were in a vegetative state, but more like he was confused. It was his eyebrows. For the last four days, Rob Olsen had been expressionless, but now his eyebrows were somewhat furrowed, not like he was angry, but more like he was trying to figure something out, or trying to remember something.
“Dad, let’s go,” Zack said softly, tugging at Rob a little harder now.
But Rob still wasn’t moving, as matter of fact he was pulling harder away from Zack now.
“Dad! Come on!”
Before Zack knew what was happening, Rob spun around and snatched the pistol from his hand.
“Dad!”
For just an instant, Rob Olsen looked into his son’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he looked at him as if he almost remembered him.
“Dad, give me…”
But Rob Olsen wasn’t listening. He began walking toward the werewolves, the gun raised. He fired a shot that ricocheted of the wall at least twenty feet from the pack.
“Dad!”
Rob continued to move forward as he fired another shot at the werewolves, this time the bullet found its mark and hit the leader in the shoulder. It screamed in either pain or anger, Zack wasn’t sure which, but it didn’t stop his father, who continued to walk down the hallway, firing one shot after another. Zack ran to his father’s side, and tried to take his arm, but Rob shook it off, then turned and pushed Zack backwards, almost knocking the teenager down.
“Dad…no!” Zack screamed, but made no effort to try to stop him now.
Rob Olsen was no more than thirty feet away from the beasts now. The werewolves were standing their ground as the bullets flew around them, until Rob fired one that struck the smallest of the three, causing it to yelp in pain. Seeing this, the leader looked at him and roared, showing every one of its teeth.
Zack started to move forwards, but stopped, because the trio of werewolves had all bent down into a crouching position.
“No…” Zack moaned, tears welling up in his eyes as his father walked farther and farther away from him, and closer and closer to the monsters.
Suddenly, Rob stopped, and slowly turned around and looked at Zack. Once again, he didn’t say anything, or give any sign that he actually recognized his son, other than the fact that he looked him in the eyes. It was almost as if he were telling his son goodbye without really knowing it.
Tears were now rolling down Zack’s face as his father turned back around to face the werewolves, who were still in pouncing mode. He pulled the trigger one last time, but nothing happened. The gun was empty. As if they knew that he was out of ammunition, the three werewolves roared in unison, anticipating their next meal. Not to be outdone, Rob let out a roar of his own, which echoed throughout the hallway. Then, much to Zack and the werewolves’ surprise, Rob began to scream even louder, and then began to run straight at the pack. The werewolves seemed almost startled for a moment, their instincts telling them that prey seldom ran straight at the hunter.
As Rob ran at them, they in turn, began to run at him. Zack watched as his father, screaming maniacally, and the pack of werewolves crashed into one giant ball of limbs and claws.
Crying, Zack turned away and began running. He could hear his father still screaming as he round the corner of the hallway. He was still fighting them as he was being torn apart. Zack was halfway down the corridor when he heard his father finally stop screaming, instead hearing the monsters howl in triumph. All the boy could now was run, his father buying him time. With tears streaming down his face, the boy ran and ran and ran…
Kyler was huffing and puffing as he reached the top of the spiral staircase, still carrying the Uzi in one hand, and Kayla in the other. The baby was awake now, but had stopped crying. Thank god, Kyler thought to himself, not wanting to attract any more attention to himself than he absolutely had to.
He’d walked up at least eight floors, turning around every ten steps or so, to make sure that Jr. Werewolf wasn’t behind them. He never heard it following, but the back of his neck kept itching, telling him that the thing might be tiptoeing, if werewolves could tiptoe, slowly behind him.
Kyler gladly let the fresh air from the doorway work its way into his lungs. He bent down and placed both the gun and the baby just in front of the shattered doorway, and then put his hands on his hips, trying to gulp in as much air as possible. His arms and shoulders were tired, as well as his legs, which were almost rubbery now from walking roughly twenty something floors, going both downstairs and up again.
Still breathing heavily, Kyler turned back around, peered into the darkness, and listened again. Still nothing. The little shit had either decided that following him could be risky, or perhaps…and he didn’t really want to think about it…perhaps, one of the bullets had struck and killed it. He had really assed things up by not reporting Nicholas Klefka to Col. Potts. He wondered if Potts and the others were still alive. Could he and the baby be the only ones left? What about Michael, Lauren, FranAnne, Sgt. Cohen, Sylvia Morrison, Sam Fong…and, of course, Zora, whom he thought at one time, was someone that he could have a long term relationship with…were they all gone? Were they all soon to become werewolf waste…something used to mark its territory?
Kyler leaned against the landing wall and closed his eyes. What was he going to do now? Where could he go for the next six or seven hours? He had decided one thing. If he was the last person left either alive or the only non-werewolf, he was going to find out who had become werewolves…and kill them…all of them. His wimpiness had already caused too much death and destruction. It was time to put an end to it. If he didn’t get off the island, then so be it. At least there wouldn’t be any more werewolves.
As his heart began to slow, Kyler thought he heard something…a metallic sound. He held his breath as he put his ear toward the landing and listened. There it was again. Another metallic sound, only this time, he thought he heard the sound of something scratching against the metal…something that sounded like tiny claws scraping slowly over metal step plates.
“No. No. No…” he said, softly.
And then he heard…”Pat” “pat” “pat” “pat”. Shit, the little son-of-a-bitch was still there!
Kyler scooped up Kayla who was smiling as she looked up at him, and then picked up the Uzi. “pat” “pat” “pat” “pat”….
Instead of turning around and shooting down the stairwell again, Kyler stepped through the hole in the wall, and began to run down the corridor. He’d only gotten several feet from the secret entrance, when he heard something fly through the air behind him, and bounce against the far wall. Kyler spun around to see the tiny werewolf hissing as it picked itself up off of the floor. The little bastard had been following him. Kyler tried to aim the gun one-handed again, and pulled the trigger. The werewolf pup dodged out of the way of the bullets. It was so small that only an expert marksman would’ve been able to hit the thing, plus the bullets were coming nowhere near it. The Uzi did the same thing as it did before, which was to completely go in every direction but the one he was aiming for. Sheetrock was falling from the ceiling and cinder block pebbles were flying off the walls. Chips of white tile were scattering across the floor.
The Uzi was just too much for Kyler to handle one-handed, and soon the gun fell to the floor. H
e didn’t bother to retrieve it. He just took Kayla in both arms and began to sprint down the hallway. As he rounded the first corner, he heard the thing sliding on the floor behind him as it too rounded the corner, its claws trying to find some type of foothold in the tile.
Kyler made a left turn and then a right, the tiny werewolf right behind him, and growling like a pup as it tried to overtake the two-legger that had taken its sister. The only thing that Kyler could think of to do, was head for the sleeping quarters and hope that someone there had a gun.
Kyler rounded corner after corner trying to shake the cub, but it wasn’t working. The little shit was no longer flailing and losing its feet as it rounded the corners. It had figured out how to hug the corner and stay on upright. As it began to gain ground, he could feel the thing nipping at his feet, its little teeth clicking with every miss.
Amazingly, little Kayla was not crying, but almost cooing, as if she knew that Kyler and her twin brother were having a nice fun game of chase. Kyler felt his legs about to give. He didn’t know if he could go on much longer. He might just have to turn around and take the thing on, but how do you fight something that’s fast, mobile, has sharp teeth, and is barely over a foot long?
Kyler took another left and then another right, continuing the race back to the sleeping quarters. His legs were rubbery again now and he knew that there just wasn’t much left in them…that is, until he rounded a last corner and shot past something…or a couple of somethings…that were headed in the opposite direction. They were only a blur as he passed them, but he could tell by the smell of fur that he’d just run past a werewolf…or several werewolves who’d been walking down the corridor. He must’ve surprised them as he shot past, because not one of them put out a claw or took a nip at him, or anything. He’d run past them so quickly that they hadn’t had a chance to react.
He heard a roar behind him that was so loud that he thought it might bring the whole building down around him. And why not? He had obviously been in their den and taken not only their future cub, but had also led their other cub out of their hiding place.
Kyler felt a new surge of energy as he heard the sound of larger feet running behind him now. Shit, he had just managed to piss off a whole clan of werewolves. As he rounded the last corner before the straightway that led to the sleeping quarters, a host of thoughts began to race through his mind. What if everyone in the sleeping quarters was there and unarmed? He’d just be leading the pack straight to them. He couldn’t do that. Maybe he could hold them off by pretending that he was going to hurt little Kayla if they came any closer. That probably wouldn’t work though, and even if it did, could he stand there for half the night and keep up the pretense until they went back to their den to sleep?
Kyler could feel the werewolves gaining on him. He was almost to the sleeping quarters, but he couldn’t go in…not and give everyone up to the beasts. He’d just made up his mind to bypass the sleeping quarters, when out of the room, stepped Zora and Sam Fong. Zora raised a gun straight at Kyler’s face. He knew that she was pissed at him, but he hadn’t realized, until now, just how much. And what was that in Sam’s hand? A knife?
“Duck!” Zora screamed at him, raising the pistol higher.
Kyler didn’t need to be told a second time, not to mention the fact that his legs had decided between themselves to give up on him starting, coincidentally, right then.
Kyler dove for the floor, careful to slide on his side as not to crush the baby. As he was sliding across the floor, he managed to spin around onto his back, finally stopping at Zora’s feet. He looked up to see Zora firing her pistol, the sound magnified by the small space. He lifted his head up in time to see one of the werewolves take three bullets to the chest and immediately fall straight backwards as if it had tried to outrun its leash.
The beast yelped in pain, and then roared in anger. Kyler scrambled to his feet managing to hang onto the baby.
“Get down!” she yelled at him, mainly because he was between her and the monsters.
He hit his knees and crawled under her as she fired the pistol three more times. He heard one of the other werewolves howl in pain as she fired. He turned around to see that the one werewolf was falling from its knees onto its back, its legs folding under it. Smoke seemed to be pouring from the bullet holes. The other two, plus Junior, were standing at the end of the hall. They must’ve stopped when Zora sent the one to the floor. The larger werewolf was holding its side. It must’ve been the one that he’d heard yelping.
Kyler watched the remaining trio as Zora reloaded her clip. They looked like the Three Bears…in their case…the Three Werewolves, standing together, stone still, watching them, hot breath shooting out of their nostrils. Zora began to fire her pistol again, one bullet coming extremely close the larger one’s head. It ducked and then straightened up and roared at her. But instead of advancing on them, it turned around, and appeared to be almost shooing the other two away. The smaller adult and the baby quickly rounded the corner, not so the large one. Still holding its side, it gave one last angry roar, its yellow eyes burning brightly, before disappearing around the corner. As the werewolves left, one of them gave a long lonely howl, as if it were crying.
Kyler plopped down on his butt exhausted, still cradling the baby to his chest. Zora looked at him, but said nothing. Instead, she began to walk over to the fallen werewolf. Sam reached down and helped Kyler to his feet.
The thing was still alive, but barely. Its breathing was slow and raspy, and the smoke still poured from the wounds. With every few breaths, the thing would growl involuntarily. Kyler watched as Zora stood over the werewolf and raised her gun. She fired off three quick blasts into the things head. Hair, blood, and bones began to splatter the walls. The thing became silent and still. Zora motioned Sam over. Sam walked to the beast, took out his knife, and then proceeded to cut the monster’s head off. Kyler grimaced as Sam removed the head, because he wasn’t doing it like they did in the movies, where they simply cut it off, and then held it up in the air. And even then, you generally just saw the shadow of the man and the shadow of the head silhouetted on a wall. No, Sam was twisting and pulling and yanking and putting his foot against the thing’s shoulder and pulling some more, and then twisting the head completely around. Finally, the thing gave way, but instead of holding it high in the air in triumph, Sam dropped it…and then vomited.
“I’m guessing,” Kyler started, trying to catch his breath. “That the baby was Oliver Dixon, and the smaller one was Shelly Dixon…so I’m guesstimating that the larger one was Cpl. Marcus Dixon. What do you think?”
Kyler handed the baby to Zora, and then leaned back against the wall and started slowly banging the back of his head.
“Why are you doing that?” Zora asked him.
“Nicholas Klefka, Samantha Gould, and now three-quarters of the Dixon family. Five werewolves. Five God damned werewolves, and it could’ve stopped at one.”
As Sam vomited harder, Kyler hit his head harder. Zora put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she told him.
“It’s the only thing I’m good at…well, that and failing.”
“That’s stupid,” she came back. God, he liked her better when she smiled at him. “You risked your life to save that baby. That…how is it you Americans say it…that makes you square with the house. Besides, you had nothing to do with any of them changing. They were all Klefka or Klefka by proxy.””
Kyler remained leaning against the wall, but now his eyes were closed. Next to
him, the sleeping quarters door opened, causing him to jump. Out of it, popped the head of Lauren O’Hearley. Her face was tearstained, but she smiled as she looked up at him.
“You’re okay,” she said softly, walking out of the room and putting her arms around his waist, and her head to his stomach.
“Mother’s dead,” she sobbed quietly. “So is Mr. Olsen.”
Kyler cradled the girl’s head with bot
h arms.
“Is there anyone else…dead?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” she answered, looking up into his eyes. “But we haven’t seen Miss Morrison or Mr. Boots in a long time.”
Kyler didn’t think he could take anymore. Why hadn’t he just killed Klefka? Why hadn’t he just taken something and split the fucker’s head open?
“Who does that leave?” he asked.
“It was just me, Michael, and Zack until Miss LeMarque and Mr. Fong came back.”
Kyler walked inside the room, shifting Lauren to his side so that he could move easier. When he got inside the room, he saw Zack Olsen sitting down in a corner, his knees up and his face buried in his arm. Michael Blum sat next to him, his broken leg sticking straight out in front of him. He sat silently not sure how to comfort an older boy.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Zora said as she and the now pale Sam, walked into the room. Kyler now noticed that Sam had a rag with a red dot painted upon it wrapped around his forehead. He supposed it was supposed to be the Japanese flag.
“Any word from Potts?” Kyler asked.
“None,” Zora answered. “But they are thirteen floors up.”
“And we should be joining them,” Sam threw in, wiping his knife on his pants.
“How did Shelly become one of them?” Kyler asked. “When did she get bitten? I’ve been checking on her every day, and I never saw any type of wound.”
“Well, she did have that little red mark on her neck,” Sam said.
“What?”
“That little red mark,” Sam repeated. “On her neck.”
Kyler looked at Zora. “I didn’t see any little red mark,” he shot back.
“On her neck,” Sam said, looking from Kyler to Zora. “I saw it last night when we got back. I laid her on the bed and her hair came away from her neck. It was right about there,” he finished, pointing to a place on his own neck.