by Glenn Rolfe
Joe began the meeting.
“Okay, so we have everyone here.” He pulled out an overstuffed folder from behind him. “What I’m about to tell you never leaves this room.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Deputies Dwayne Clarke and Shelly Glescoe sat beside each other in utter disbelief. Joe Fischer’s words kept playing repeatedly in Dwayne’s mind.
“We’re dealing with a beast that I have seen with my own eyes. I have shot and killed this…this thing before. It’s not some random wild animal. It’s not a maniac serial killer. It is a werewolf.”
Joe Fischer was not one to give in to an overactive imagination. He was an honest, God-fearing man. He was the sense in this town. He was the rock they all leaned on. If he was telling them that werewolves were real—they were.
Shelly broke the silence. “Do you think that’s why Hines has been acting so strange?”
Her voice snapped him from his trance. “What?”
“Do you think Hines has been acting so strange because of all of this? I mean, Joe said Hines was with him that night, and that Randy saw it too. That’s the kind of shit that could really mess you up. Hell, this kind of changes everything, doesn’t it?”
She was right. This did change everything. It’s not like they were fighting a deranged man or hunting a rabid fox. This wasn’t even a goddam mountain lion. They were searching for a monster.
“Yeah, I think Randy’s acting strange has everything to do with this. If it had been me—” He suddenly envisioned himself standing before the beast, in his daydream the monster looked like the version from that old horror movie An American Werewolf in London. He saw himself standing before it, gun drawn and aimed at its elongated snout, the beast drooling, staring him down with its yellowy eyes—
“Dwayne?”
“If we see this thing, if we come face-to-face with this…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. “Well, I just don’t know how you come out of a confrontation with something that’s not supposed to exist and go back to acting like it was just another two-bit criminal,” he finally finished. He dropped his gaze to the floor.
“Do you think the sheriff trusts us?” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Didn’t you see the way he looked at us when he told us to stay here until he called? I don’t know…he just looked concerned. I think he’s worried about us.”
Dwayne stood up, walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself another Styrofoam cup. He definitely did not need anything to stimulate his already shot nerves, but he couldn’t sit still.
He thought of former deputy Paulson. He’d only worked with the man briefly before Paulson took a job out of state. When did Joe let him in on his werewolf theory? Had he told him and the other deputies immediately? Or had he waited until the night of the full moon to tell them as well? He was guessing it was the latter. The sheriff was a man with very broad shoulders. He looked out for all of his deputies. He had probably kept this whole damn thing to himself, to carry alone the weight of its psychological impact.
Or maybe Shelly’s right. Maybe he thought they were too young, too inexperienced to handle this whole situation. Regardless, they were involved. They would be out there, under the full moon, searching every dark corner of Gilson Creek, alongside Sheriff Fischer and Deputy Hines. Dwayne looked past Rita’s desk, toward the graying sky beyond the station’s front windows. A storm was coming.
After a moment’s thought Dwayne offered, “Maybe he is looking out for us, but I don’t think that necessarily means he doesn’t have faith in us as being able to do our jobs.”
“Maybe I was just projecting my own sense of deficiencies on him. I mean, aren’t you scared?” she said, once again gnawing at her near-nonexistent nails.
“Hell yeah, I’m scared. You saw those bodies. This thing is capable of tearing us to pieces.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He watched the woman he loved break down in tears. He went to her and pulled her into his arms, feeling the wetness on his shoulder. “Do you want to take a quick walk around the station? This is all pretty heavy stuff. Maybe some fresh air would help?” he offered.
She agreed, and they went out onto the front steps of the station.
Sonya convinced Alex to stop at her house before they went to Hollis Oaks. He needed to cool off a bit more after his bust up with his uncle, and she knew just how to help him relax, plus she figured after doing it, maybe Alex would change his mind about going to the movie and they could just hang there.
“You wanna take that off upstairs?” Sonya gave Alex her best come-hither look.
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
He lifted her up; her legs coiled around him. They kissed their way up the stairs and into her bedroom.
Something fell out of his jacket as he flung the leather coat to the floor.
“What’s that?” Sonya said.
“That?” He glanced at the object on the floor. “Oh, my switchblade.”
“Switchblade? What are you, some kind of greaser now?”
“I always keep it on me, just in case,” he said. “What about your dad? He’s not gonna come busting in is he?”
“I don’t think he’s coming home tonight. He did tell me that he wanted me to stay home. He said you guys could all crash here. He doesn’t want us out.”
“Really? Like that night he made us stay at Kim’s?”
“No, he wasn’t that bad. I’m thinking it has something to do with Stan Springs.”
“Why? Did he mention him?”
“No, but that guy seems to be getting under my dad’s skin pretty good. I think he’s making a bigger deal out of it than he should.”
“Well, when he talked to me the way he did, it creeped me out. Has he seen him recently? I know I haven’t.”
“I don’t know, I don’t care,” Sonya said. “Can we just forget about all that business for a little while? I want to have fun tonight.”
“You just wanna get all hot and bothered watching your boyfriend, James Franco.”
“I’m hot and bothered right now. So shut up and do something about it.”
After they were finished and dressed, they headed back down the stairs and toward the door.
“Hold up a minute. I want to write my dad a note, in case he does show up before we make it back.”
She grabbed the yellow notepad from the couch and flipped it over.
“Are you sure you wanna go to the movie tonight? Maybe we should just stay here so you don’t get in trouble.”
There was her out. Still, there really hadn’t been any attacks in a month. Hell with it. The movie was only a couple of hours long. They’d be back before nightfall.
“Yeah, we told Kim and Heath we’d meet them there. Besides, we’ll be back before dark.”
“What about your dad?”
“You let me worry about him.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I’m just gonna leave him a note and let him know we’re all together and that we’ll probably all be coming back here after the movie.”
It was dark outside. Not night, but the storm clouds looked like something out of a Tim Burton film. Dark, dreary, ominous. The wind and rain hammered at them as they ran to Alex’s car. Sonya saw Mr. Donavan standing under the cover of his porch across the street.
He’s probably out smoking his pipe before supper.
She gave him a quick wave and ducked into the car.
Allan Donavan smoked his pipe and watched as the car pulled away into the storm. He had an intense sense of foreboding as he watched the young lovebirds disappear.
You’d never catch me out in this kind of weather.
He was standing out on his porch under the protection of its gable roof. He was trying to enjoy the taste and aroma of the Cherry Cordial to
bacco coming from his favorite pipe. It had always been his preferred after-dinner tobacco. Dot liked to have a couple of after-dinner mints; he always had his Cherry Cordial. There was this bitterness in his mouth tonight, though, that wasn’t normally present.
They’d decided to eat supper early and hit the sack right after. He knew what kind of moon was coming tonight. He would finish his pipe and settle in for the night. Nothing good ever came out of a night with a full moon, especially not in this town. He’d lived in Gilson Creek longer than most, and he knew that town had a bad history that was irrevocably tied to what he himself referred to as Gilson Creek’s blood moon. He snuffed his pipe out, placed it back in his shirt pocket, stepped back inside his house and locked the heavy door behind him.
Stan Springs threw his housecoat to the grass, took a deep breath and dropped to the ground. Long gone were the days when he tried to cage the beast, the days of attempting to fight the change. Long gone were the times of giving a shit about safety or compassion.
He allowed the first of the changes through. Control of the transformation was almost as thrilling as the kills. Black hairs rose from the epidermis of his arms, chest and legs. Muscles tensed and tore. His better half’s teeth shoved the old enamel crowns from their home. He had to concentrate to halt the change at that.
Satisfied, he vanished into the sea of trees. He was hungry and it was time to feed. His first feast of the night wasn’t more than a yard away.
“Can’t you shut those mutts up?”
Pug Gettis cursed his wife under his breath. “You know a way to make whatever’s out there disappear? Dogs ain’t doin’ nothin’ but warnin’ us ’bout trouble.”
“Well, they been yappin’ since I got home. I want peace and quiet.”
Peace and quiet. He wished for the day Becky’d learn to keep quiet. Unlike his wife, Pug considered his dogs to be the finest bitches in town.
“Well?”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’.”
Pug grabbed the flashlight from the shelf on the porch in case he needed to check the treeline. Even though night hadn’t fallen yet, the black storm clouds had a stranglehold on what remained of the daylight. He slipped out the door and into the heavy wind.
Damn storms seem to follow that full moon.
Pug wasn’t a scaredy-cat like some of the people in town. Dave Jenner had closed up the grocery store early today. Becky hadn’t been able to get her chicken salad or her potato bread. That was the first thing she’d bitched about this afternoon.
He wasn’t surprised in the least to hear Jenner closed early. Dave was a full-fledged wolfman believer. Must have been the only one in town who thought Old Mike was a God-tapped messenger sent to “save us all”—even when the sheriff’s boys, or that cute female deputy, came to grab Old Mike from the store during one of his rants. Dave only called after so many complaints.
The dogs’ growls and barks simply ceased. The howling wind acted as their replacement. Pug stopped. He thought he saw movement in the woods. A thwapping noise startled him. He looked and saw a branch from the old oak tree hammer down on the shed’s roof. The girls’ silence spooked his soul more than any of Old Mike’s grisly tales.
Pug inched closer, sweating through his work shirt. A few light rain drops had begun to fall.
Thwap, thwap, thwap.
Now don’t go getting’ all superstitious out here.
Pug put his foot down. His ankle rolled and he fell to the ground. “Uhh.” His elbow jammed into his ribs. Something inside cracked.
A rash of snaps and deep crunches erupted off to the right of the dog shed where he thought he’d seen something. Pug, his eyes not being what they used to, struggled to see what was there.
“Becky…” he wheezed.
The dogs began to whimper and whine.
“Beck…Beckeeee…”
The growl he heard caused his sphincter to constrict. He dug his elbow into the mud—it sunk like a stone—and tried to pull his injured body away from the awful noise. The pain in his ribs exploded. His whimpers joined his girls’.
“Bec…Beck…Bec…”
The shadowy tree line birthed a mountain of a beast. Pug Gettis shrunk in the face of the eyes gazing at him.
“Oh…oh…oh…” his mind skipped over and over.
The half man, half beast—Dave Jenner’s wolfman—raced forward and ripped him into the air by the throat. Pug heard the high whines of his girls one last time and the crack of his own neck. The world faded to black as he was dragged into the woods.
The beast barely had finished lapping the blood and gore of Pug Gettis from its mouth when it arrived at the property of Mel Murdock. The monster stepped through the trees and found the house sitting in silence. It watched as the patrol car crept past the front of the home. Deputy Randy Hines was behind the wheel.
Hello, Randy, you piece of shit.
Stan Springs never had thought much of Hines, when he was running things in this shithole town. Randy had been just another weak, kiss-ass kid who wanted to feel empowered and have the security that a gun on your hip provided.
Stan had seen plenty of them during his seventeen years as the acting sheriff of Gilson Creek. Peter Sullivan, Mitch Brennan, Kelly Hobson, Glen Richards—the list went on and on. They were all nice guys, none of whom would have lasted two seconds had they actually been placed in a critical situation. They were representatives of the law in a town like Gilson Creek for a reason. None of them would have so much as sniffed active duty in a big city.
Randy Hines, who was a Gilson Creek lifer, had been abused by his father growing up. Stan himself had to make numerous trips to the Hines home to question his parents over school reports of the multiple bruises Randy wore to class.
His mother, Lillian, was also a victim of Randy Sr. She had just been better at covering it up. Stan remembered her having fat lips, black eyes, finger imprints around her throat, and also the fact that she had a hundred obvious, made-up excuses for each wound’s appearance.
Randy Sr., of course, had denied having anything to do with the visual injuries apparent on his wife and son. With neither of them willing to come forth with anything remotely resembling an accusation, Stan’s hands had pretty much been tied. A head-on collision with a drunk driver killed Randy Sr. one Sunday morning during Jr.’s senior year. There was a closed-casket funeral for him that no one attended.
Stan recalled Randy joining the force shortly after graduating from college. He was a pussy then and a pussy now—nothing more than a scared kid hiding behind a badge and a gun.
The patrol car left Stan’s field of vision.
Now let’s see what little Miss Big Tits is up to.
Joe Fischer was pulling his Range Rover into the parking lot of Mel’s Café when the voice of Deputy Hines broke across his radio, “Sheriff?”
He picked up the two-way. “Go ahead, Hines.”
“All’s clear out by Mel’s. Where do you want me to head now?”
“Take a ride out to the lake. Looks like the storm’s coming in. It’s almost five. I want you to make sure everybody’s out. And if you see Sonya there, I want you to take her back to my house. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. What if she’s not there?”
“Then you send everybody else home and head over to the town line and back.”
“Roger that, Sheriff.”
Joe stepped out of his truck, put his hat on his head and headed for the doors to the café. Deputy Clarke informed him that he had given Mel a ride in to work. He said she was too nervous to stay at home.
The thought of the beach made him nervous. It was a popular place for young adults to hang out, just about the only place in Gilson Creek. With the rain coming down, maybe they would all head for cover. Still, he was worried; even the rain did not possess the power to completely dampen teenage hormones. There were bound to
be a few stragglers. Emerson Lake was secluded, surrounded by woods and a little too close to Old Gilson Creek Road. He should have left Clarke out there earlier, or just had the balls to close the beach for the whole damn day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Stan Springs—half man, half monster—stood in the living room of Melanie Murdock’s home. Beer bottles on the glass coffee table. He counted seven empties in all. He hadn’t pegged her as someone who would get drunk by herself. He sniffed the air. Cigarettes and Old Spice. So, the sheriff really was shacking up with her.
He followed the faint scent of sex to the bedroom. The flannel sheets were tossed about. A torn condom wrapper sat just below the edge of the bed.
Stan took a step forward. Something sharp jammed his bare foot. He looked and discovered a gold pin stabbed into it. Not just any gold pin. A grin broke out upon his face.
The gold pin was of an eagle with its wings stretched out in flight. It had been his before he had passed it on to Joe Fischer upon resigning from active duty. He knew that his former deputy was sentimental, but to still be carrying this around with him after all this time?
How pathetic. This is going to be easier than I thought.
Stan dropped down on all fours and let the hulk within come out. Maybe her escort would ride her home upon his white horse. There would be plenty of punishment to go around.
Stan bowed his head as his body cracked, stretched and shifted into its full monthly form.
Deputy Hines stepped onto the beach. He glanced upward at the darkening clouds. Lightning flashed out over the deserted waters of Emerson Lake. It had begun to sprinkle on and off over the last thirty minutes. It wouldn’t be long before they got blasted by the full brunt of the storm. Young and old couples alike were already packing up and heading out. He continued to scan the few clumps of groups that remained for Sonya, and Alex McKinney. He watched from the bottom of the steps that led up to the dirt parking lot behind him. There was only the one entrance/exit. If the kids were still here, they would have to pass by him to leave.