by Lori Devoti
But Caleb knew the doctor’s promise was only a diversion. He knew the doctor was after him, at his most vulnerable when the moon was full and he was caught in its fever.
It was why the werewolves gathered together these nights. There was safety in numbers. Werewolves had enemies, and always had. But the pack protected its own.
Of course, Caleb wasn’t part of that pack. And, he guessed, the doctor knew that now.
He scanned the crowd for Anita. If his guess was right, she’d be watching for him, expecting him and ready with some trap.
It had taken Samantha hours to find the cabin. First she’d had to find clothing. She’d broken into another room and rummaged through suitcases. She’d found a woman’s jeans, T-shirt and undergarments. Everything was a couple of sizes too big, but it beat being naked.
Then she’d considered stealing one of the cars parked in the motel’s lot, but she was afraid to spend any more time in the area, afraid the dog would decide to sound the alarm.
She still wasn’t sure how to interpret what had happened. It had felt as if the creature understood her, sympathized with her and made a conscious choice to let her escape.
But that was ludicrous.
More ludicrous than zombies? a part of her asked.
She shook the question from her brain, along with any remaining doubts. She was at the cabin now and it was dark. She didn’t know the time, hadn’t wanted to ask the man who gave her a ride when she claimed to have had a fight with her boyfriend and stumbled off alone.
He had pressured her to go to the police, said the area wasn’t safe at night, especially right now, but she had insisted her family was staying in a cabin and she had to get to them before midnight.
After that, he’d stayed quiet, had inched a bit farther away from her actually, until his left shoulder was pressed against the driver’s side door.
And when he’d stopped and she had hopped out, he hadn’t said goodbye, hadn’t offered her any other warning, just clutched the silver cross hanging from his neck and smashed his foot onto the gas pedal.
She stared after him for a second, confused. But so many things had happened to confuse her, that his behavior soon faded from her mind and she’d set off on foot down the path she’d hoped led to the cabin.
Now she stood in front of it.
Made of logs with a metal roof, the cabin would have been quaint, if it weren’t for the noises in the woods. The sounds of scurrying animals and squawking birds combining with the chill of coming winter had her on edge.
Or maybe it was knowing her quest was almost over. For whatever reason, she was trembling from head to toe. Her teeth clattered against each other and any sense of beauty the cabin might have provided was completely lost.
Hoping she would feel better once inside, she wrapped her arms around her body and stepped onto the front porch. The corners were covered in moss and the once-red door was streaked with peeled paint.
The cabin obviously wasn’t rented out a lot. Still, it was where she had told the doctor she would be. She turned the knob and walked inside.
She could tell immediately Caleb had been there. The small space was filled with his scent. A calm settled over her. Just smelling him made her feel safe.
She walked around the room, inventorying the contents: one full-size bed with a moldy mattress, a couch with a permanent indentation in the middle cushion and a completely unstocked kitchen. There was, however, a bag of half-eaten beef jerky lying on the counter.
She stared at it, wishing it was anything else. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday and her stomach, despite the stress, reminded her of it by growling.
She pressed her hand against her abdomen as if that might solve the problem and sat on a wobbly wooden chair next to a water-stained table.
Then she waited.
Midnight couldn’t be that much longer.
The camp was filling up. Someone had lit a bonfire and a few people had gathered around it, most of them naked.
Werewolves looked good naked. The virus raised the human metabolism, increasing the body’s natural ability to build muscle. Previously flabby female converts found themselves with twenty-inch waists and ten-inch biceps while chowing down on processed potato chips and pounds of butter.
If Anita had truly wanted to get rich, she could have sold the bite as a get-thin scam.
Come to think of it, she probably already did. Caleb watched as a woman with perfect highlights and manicure motioned down her slightly chubby form while talking animatedly with another female. The second was obviously a were. As Caleb observed them, the second pulled off her clothes and twirled for the first. Then both rose on their toes, obviously searching the crowd for someone. Anita.
And knowing the alpha and her desire to grow her pack, Caleb guessed they would have a much easier time finding her than he would.
Staying in the shadows, he stalked closer.
Within minutes his quarry arrived. Barefoot and wearing only a simple T-shirt dress, the alpha padded forward. There was confidence in her gait.
With her pack gathered around her, she was at her strongest and it showed. She made sure it showed.
He let her talk to the pair for a few minutes, admiring Anita’s style as she played the woman, acting bored, reluctant. Finally, when it looked as if Anita was going to walk away, the woman said something, something that turned Anita back around to face her. She smiled at the were who had been talking to the recruit when she arrived and motioned for both of them to head to her cabin. As they walked off, Caleb approached.
“How much did that one promise?” he asked, not really interested, but knowing the question would annoy the alpha.
She stiffened, but didn’t let her surprise at seeing him show on her face.
“Caleb. I thought you were gone.”
“Did you? Really?”
“Of course. Why would I expect you to stay? You made it clear in the past that you don’t need us.” She took a step after the other females.
He touched her arm. “Aren’t you going to order me away now?”
She twisted so his hand dropped from her skin. “I have other things to concern myself with. Besides, you will do as you do. Won’t you?”
“Well, that’s very live-and-let-live of you, Anita. I’m impressed or would be if I didn’t already know you had sold me out.”
Already moving, she jerked to a halt. “Got a big head, zombie hunter, haven’t you?”
He closed the distance between them. “Funny you should mention zombies. Where are they?”
Light from the fire reflected in her eyes. “Zombies are your obsession, not mine.”
He stepped into her space, didn’t touch her, but came up next to her so their chests almost brushed. “Where are your rejects?” While he’d been watching the camp, he’d noticed none of the kids he and Samantha had met at the gas station were present and none like them, either.
“Rejects?” she parried.
“You’re selling them, aren’t you?” The fire he’d seen in her eyes seemed to flow into him. He could feel it in his belly, swelling, threatening to explode.
She stared him down. “Selling humans? That would be illegal, not to mention wrong.”
“So, not selling them. What then?”
She made another move to walk past him; he blocked her.
She bared her teeth.
He leaned in and whispered, “It would be a shame if all these new high-powered, rich recruits were here to witness your downfall.”
Her back straight, she muttered through her teeth, “Are you forgetting what night it is? Look around you. See my wolves? You can’t beat me. Not tonight.”
“Are you willing to take that gamble? I am.”
The female werewolf who had led the pudgier woman away stepped out of Anita’s cabin and stared at them.
Anita lifted her hand, telling the wolf to go back inside. When she had disappeared, the alpha shifted her eyes toward Caleb. “Your melodrama amazes me. I’m
not selling anyone. People come here for a variety of reasons, hoping for a variety of things. If I can’t help them, they are happy to be given another option. Dr. Allen gives them that.” Dr. Allen.
“And does Dr. Allen pay for that choice or do these people?” Caleb laughed and shook his head. “Excuse me—who gives you the money? I know who is really paying the price. I’ve seen Dr. Allen’s work.”
“Oh, Caleb the perfect, returning to judge me. You ever think those people got what they asked for, what they begged for? You remember that, don’t you? Wanting what you don’t have so much you would get down on your knees and beg for it? Promise anything to get it?” Her eyes glimmered, but this time it wasn’t from the fire. It was from anger, pure and simple.
Her barb hit, too. He had begged; he had been desperate. And then he had broken every promise he had made to her, walked away from the pack without so much as a backward glance.
But it had been necessary. And those promises he broke were nothing compared to finding his family’s killers. Nothing.
“And what about these ‘monsters’ you’ve been so busy killing? How different do you think they are from us? How do you know they don’t still have families? Friends? People who are just happy to see them no matter what they may look like to others?”
He snorted at her ignorance. “It isn’t that simple. Zombies don’t just look like monsters, they are monsters. People may think they want whatever empty promises this doctor gives them, but they don’t know what else comes with the package.”
“So, they deserve to be destroyed?” Anita asked. “And their families… You think they see you any differently than you saw your family’s killers?” She narrowed her eyes. “Who do you think they see as the monster?”
Caleb walked away after that. He’d heard what he’d wanted to hear. He knew Anita was working with this Allen, the zombie doctor. He also knew somewhere in the camp there was a group of rejected werewolf wannabes getting the sales pitch on becoming zombies. He just had to find them.
It didn’t take long. He went back to the parking area and walked around until he found the most rusted-out vehicle in the lot. Then he followed the scent.
The trail didn’t even go into the main camp. It stopped at the front gate then cut to the left. There was a path tramped into the grass. As Caleb followed it, the scent grew stronger. There were noises up ahead, too. Voices. He emerged into a small clearing.
There was no fire here, but then zombies didn’t like fire. And there were no cabins, just a metal and plastic structure. There was a light on inside, casting shadows through the plastic walls. He saw bodies standing, but not moving.
Caleb had retrieved his shotgun before leaving the parking area. Now he held it at his side as he walked into the space.
The building was packed with society’s misfits and rejects. Some were old, some were young, but they all had a lost air about them.
When he walked in, they all looked at him.
He must have stood out. As they turned, he heard them take a collective breath, eager, ready to become monsters.
How bad could their lives be?
The gun was heavy in his hand. They weren’t zombies yet, but they were here with that intention. Humans were easier to kill than zombies. It wouldn’t be murder. More like extermination. He’d be saving them from becoming what any sane human would rather die than become.
He lifted the gun.
One woman, older and clutching her side, stumbled toward him. “Are you the doctor? They told us you’d meet us here. I have cancer. It’s spread. There’s no hope—or there wasn’t. I can’t afford…” She glanced behind her. “My friend told me about these parties, but I don’t have the money. They said you could help me for free. Can you? Just a few more years. That’s all I want. Long enough to see my daughters settled. Their lives…they aren’t good, either.” She dropped her gaze, but then seemed to gather herself and raised her face back to his. “You are my last hope. This month is my last chance. I won’t be here much longer.”
Behind him the door he’d walked through clicked. He spun, lifted his gun and fired. The shot pinged off the metal. People around him rushed to the other side of the building as if he had just shifted. And there was a possibility of that, too. His skin itched. He fought the urge to claw at it.
His palms were wet and slippery, the gun difficult to hold.
The moon was fully up.
He opened his mouth and felt his teeth expand, felt his snout pop out.
The older woman who had been begging him for his help just seconds earlier pressed her hand to her mouth and staggered backward.
There was horror in her eyes. He’d seen it before.
But he never got used to it.
Now wasn’t the time to worry about how others saw him. He needed to stay focused, and under control. If his wolf took over, his rational mind would retreat, especially now under the full moon’s influence.
He couldn’t let that happen.
He snapped his jaws and struggled against the moon’s pull. He had tried fighting the moon before, but he had never succeeded. But then it had never truly been important before. He had just wanted to prove that he could.
But now his life might depend on it. Samantha’s life, too, along with her friend’s life and that of all the humans trapped in this building with him. All of their lives depended on him not giving in this time.
His arms and legs shook. His fingers curved. He could feel his nails hardening, growing.
A curse exploded from his lips. No, not a curse, a howl.
Chapter 16
S amantha hadn’t moved from the chair for what felt like hours. It had to be midnight. She rocked forward a bit and gripped the wooden seat.
Allison should be here soon…if the doctor hadn’t been lying.
And Samantha was unarmed, she now realized. She had been too focused on leaving the motel and her canine guard to think of searching for any weapon Caleb might have left behind.
But as the minutes ticked down, she was coming back to herself and realized how foolish it was to be sitting here without a weapon.
She wasn’t afraid of Allison. She could never be afraid of her friend, but she couldn’t trust that the doctor would actually send Allison, that zombies wouldn’t tromp through the door of the remote cabin instead.
Adrenaline zipped through her. With a harried glance at the door, she raced to the kitchen and began jerking open drawers. The first four were empty. The last stuck.
There was a noise outside. The wind…or a car? Couldn’t be the latter; there was no road. Unless it was an off-road vehicle. Samantha hadn’t considered that before now.
Panicked, she yanked on the drawer. It flew open. At first she thought it was empty, too. Then she saw what she was seeking in the back, a rusty filet knife, the tip of the blade stuck in the side of the drawer. She pulled the implement out and turned, just as the door to the cabin creaked opened.
The world exploded around Caleb, the moon punishing him for fighting back. He fell to his knees; his body convulsed. The older woman who had begged for his assistance ran toward the other humans. She groped at the group blindly as if someone would step forward and explain what she was seeing.
So, they hadn’t been told what to expect, Caleb thought. Just heard the sales job, not the dirty details that came with being a werewolf.
He grunted as another shock of pain lanced through him.
Caleb hadn’t been told, either, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have walked through hell to get werewolf powers and immunity to a zombie’s bite.
He did walk through hell, every time he thought of his family devoured by those zombies.
Caught up in his own drama, he missed the change in the room. The air seemed to thicken, as if someone had started a fog machine. Still convulsing, he sucked in a lungful and coughed.
It tasted…rotten, like sulphur.
Half-shifted, he twirled.
The older woman was still staring
at him, but her eyes were sightless. She fell forward onto her knees, then forward again until she was facedown on the dirt floor. Around the room others fell, too, until Caleb was the last being standing.
His wolf took advantage of his loss of concentration and shoved his way forward. Caleb fell, too, but not victim of the gas—victim of his wolf half.
On the ground, hair sprouted from his skin and his bones bent. Thrashing, he tried to regain control, but it was too late. He’d lost. He shifted.
As a wolf, he leaped to his feet and swirled. His first instinct was to run…not away, just run. It was what weres did under the moon. Ran, hunted, made love, embraced life.
But the smell in the building stopped him. It wasn’t the smell of life; it was the stench of death. His muscles tensed and his fur rose.
He trotted to the right. Bodies lay strewn around the space. He nuzzled the first—a woman, her mouth and eyes open, her skin slack. Beside her lay a man, also dead.
He sniffed them both, judging his hunger. Wolves hunted their own kills, but they weren’t above taking carrion when hungry.
And Caleb was hungry. Starving, he suddenly realized. He opened his jaws ready to snack on the female. As his teeth touched her flesh, something inside him objected, some part of him—buried, hidden—yelled this was wrong. He wasn’t a wolf, didn’t live as a wolf lived, didn’t let his instincts rule him.
Confused, he hesitated and growled.
The wolf didn’t like to be controlled, not ever, but especially not tonight. It was hungry, the moon was full and a banquet had been spread out before him.
Why shouldn’t he eat? Caleb reached for an arm.
A noise rumbled from the woman’s throat and her hand twitched. She opened her eyes and stared into the wolf’s face.
He steeled himself for the scream.
She tilted her head to the side, reached out her arm and jammed her fingers into his fur. Then, mouth open, she jerked him toward her.