“God, this is pointless,” the punk said, at the end of the story. He put the camera on pause and went upstairs, because Ishmael wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do.
“And then in 1972,” Two-Trees added, “they dammed Steeper Lake, reducing Pouch Lake to a third of its original size.”
The boy muscled his way through the iron door.
“That’s why the spirit of hunger got loose,” Two-Trees said, “and that’s why we’re in this predicament.”
And just like that, Two-Trees understood what had to be done.
His stomach felt as if it were full of snakes.
He knew what he had to do.
There was no way in hell they could quarantine so many people, so fast. Not without assistance from Wyrd. And Wyrd was no more.
“So what do you think?” Two-Trees asked, as the door opened again.
“Damned fine story, Dr. Two-Trees,” Ishmael said. “Ugh, God, you people smell,” he said, as Maurelli entered once more. She tried to snap her fingers, but she had no skin on her fingertips, only a shell-like surface. She pointed at her son, and then at his camera.
“You can’t fight it forever,” she told Ishmael. “The world will see what you are.”
“You’ll only expose yourself in the process,” Two-Trees said. He had to find a way out. He didn’t have Ishmael’s flexibility, he didn’t have Bridget’s bite strength, and he didn’t have Sister Whitehair’s magic paint brush. At the moment, all he had was his big mouth.
“That’s the whole point,” Maurelli said. “For months, Jay kept telling us, Be careful. Don’t show yourself in public. If you get caught, they will come in here and kill this whole town. Wait until the bonewalkers are at full strength. Wait until we can assemble the whole Bone Tribe. Well, you know what? Bring it. Look! Look what he did to me. Look what he did to my son, to all those boys and girls! Luring them. Bargaining with them. Promising a home and a family they could trust. Runaways, all of them, and no one cared to look for them. Castaways. Throwaways. Come to me, he says, and I’ll give you the power to strike back at your enemies. I’ll give you new life! Come to me and wreak a new apocalypse on this fat, sick earth! Come to me and live! All the perks of werewolfism with none of the hair! Boy, he wasn’t kidding, now was he?” She put her fingers into her hair and pulled. The wig came off. When the thing fell in front of Ishmael, he shouted and cringed, as if it had been made of mustard gas. He sat back on his heels and all his ribs cracked outward, expanding his chest. Swearing, panting, he shook his head violently and leaned forward as if trying to compress his ribs back into human form again. The wig bobbed on the waves he made, rubbing against his legs.
The camera was right in his face now. More kids came in, each with bay-leaf ears and wigs.
“Seventy children!” she wailed. “Boys and girls he recruited from all over the god damned country. Runaways. Trash children. Punks. And he brings them all here. Here. To my town. Says they can hide in all the rundown houses, says they can crash on the farms and in the old factories. He recruits my own son, saying he’ll be a great right-hand man someday. And then he infects me, saying he needs a scientific mind on his side, someone who knows how to keep kids in line, someone who knows how to give them direction in their lives—and what direction do I give ’em? Straight to hell.”
Ishmael shook his head again. Brown hair was creeping up over his scalp, like he was slowly drowning in paint. “I . . . will not . . . help you,” he forced out. He glanced at the camera. Another spasm hit him, and his spine arched. The shell-like caps on Maurelli’s fingers shot forward and merged with her chalky fingernails, encapsulating her fingertips in sharp bone in place of claws. One swipe, and she had Ishmael’s jacket torn open from the hood down.
Three more kids came in. She pulled them over to stand near Ishmael, though they got in the way of the camera angle. One by one, they got taller and lost their skin, and Ishmael twisted away from them. Where Two-Trees had assumed were tan lines, skin darkened and ruptured. Black tribal thorns moved on each face like a nest of snakes. They were suffocating him in change pheromones.
Fight it, Ishmael.
Maurelli ripped away his sleeves, sliding them down his arms to his manacles. He lurched to his feet to head-butt her, but she was fast and prepared. He stopped, belly cinching. He dropped to his knees again, breathing hard through his nose.
Fight it, or everything you’ve fought for is lost.
“And then one by one,” Maurelli continued, “they all started dying off. Kids, with their whole lives ahead of them. Does Jay give a damn? No. He tells me to save the ones I can. He’ll only be taking the strongest ones anyhow. So I try to save them, and what do I do? I only make them worse! Hungrier! They start going off on their own. Luring more kids into their little games, infecting them with Sydney’s blood, turning them, fattening them up, promising them all the same damned things Jay promised them, and when the time is right . . . ?”
“They’ve been eating away from the pantry,” Two-Trees said. “And the more they eat, the hungrier they get.”
Come on, Ishmael, keep it together. Figure something out. Get us out of here before she realizes I’m stringing her along.
“Except human meat doesn’t satisfy their hunger, does it?” Two-Trees asked. “They crave werewolf flesh.”
Ishmael was retching, but nothing was coming up. He strained against the chains. Two-Trees could see just what all that extra food had been doing for Ishmael. His neck had widened, his face had gone square, his shoulders and pecs made his shirt stretch thin. Metal groaned.
Oh shit. Distraction . . . We need a distraction . . .
“Is that what the ‘process’ is?” Two-Trees asked. “Your children need werewolf flesh to keep their cravings at bay, to let them continue passing in public like ordinary teenagers.”
Her breath whistled through the holes in her cheek. There was a film over her eyes.
“Take a victim. Plug him full of lycanthropic blood and pray the infection takes. Once you get confirmation, you feed the sorry sons of bitches until they’re ready to burst, and once the calf is fattened, then comes the feast.”
She might have smiled, but it was hard to tell without any cheeks or coloured lips. “Jay says there’s something wrong with our virus. Something missing. That’s why we didn’t become werewolves like him. That’s the way we were designed, he said, by Wyrd! Our infection comes out of a lab.” She laughed bitterly. “Manufactured. Plastic. Sydney . . . Sydney is the by-product of all that experimentation—her father’s daughter. I knew. And I’m the one who kept her alive. I’m the one who understood what she needed to survive. Jay says we need something to plug up the holes in our DNA. And I know what it is!”
She pointed at Ishmael’s bowed head.
“We need his virus, inside us.”
“And you think he’s got enough to feed all of you?” Two-Trees asked.
“You’ve seen what happens when the cravings get out of control! They hunt. They stalk. They kill. They eat wherever the body lands! But when they eat flesh like his,” she said, giving Ishmael a kick, “the real thing . . . then they get stronger. They gain control over their powers. I . . . gain control.” She grinned, showing him all her many shark teeth. “You stood in my office and you never knew! How many idiots have been in and out of my office in the last four years, never knowing that I spent my nights here, feasting on fattened werewolves? That I keep my cattle chained under twenty feet of concrete in the middle of town?” Her laughter sounded like gusts of winter wind. “And I knew you from the moment you walked into that hotel. We all did.” She grinned. “Jay said we should expect you.”
Ishmael locked eyes with Two-Trees, pulling against his chains until his body quivered. He paused, nodded ever so subtly to Two-Trees, and took a breath before resuming the strain.
“Yeah, but something went wrong,” Two-Trees said. Ishmael needed more time to weaken his bonds. “You must have done something to her.”
“No!
” Maurelli shouted. “Jay . . . Jay found her. Jay was supposed to take her to quarantine. Jay took her and locked her up here, so he could experiment on her, until he could get her virus stabilized, until he could release her back into the wild among my students. It was her virus he experimented on, and it was her modified virus he injected into my son four years ago, and into me, and into all those other idiotic children who fell for his line!”
Ishmael’s strength gave out, and he shook his head.
“And then he started trying new ‘treatments’,” Maurelli continued, “injecting Sydney with more and more viral material. And now? She’ll be our juggernaut, he says, the great tank in our army of bonewalkers, our heavy artillery, our shock troop! And then what does he do? He sees what he’s made of her, and he runs away, leaving us—leaving me to clean up the mess. And now you’re here. Who’s next? The press. The army.”
“Then we have to keep this a secret,” Two-Trees said. “We can help you. We can find a way to fix this.” He pointed weakly at Ishmael’s shoulder. “Let us go, let us help you. But for God’s sake, we need to keep this quiet a little while longer. Don’t go to the press with this, or they will go to the army, and your children will become hostage guinea pigs, just like Sydney!”
“No . . .” Maurelli shook her naked head. “No, I don’t give a damn. Screw Wyrd. Screw all of you. This disease, this was your fault. I don’t give a damn about secrets anymore. I’m done playing dumb when cops walk in asking if I’ve seen this missing boy or another—kids I know who can’t even walk above ground in daylight anymore. I give a damn that I can’t help my own son. I give a damn that all hell’s about to break loose, and these kids are gonna go crazy like Sydney, and bust out of here—and me with them—and by God, we’ll tear this town apart.”
Ishmael was smiling. He pushed himself to his feet again, grinning, breathing so hard that spit came from his mouth. Every time he exhaled, his whole body shivered, making his head shake spasmodically.
More kids came in, all changing one after the other. Ishmael’s skin was rippling, as if there was a sea of black and brown under the surface and the tide was coming in.
“In a couple of days, it’s gonna be all over the media,” Maurelli promised. “They’re going to know you exist, and they’re going to know about what you did to us.”
Ishmael opened his eyes and breathed hot spit. The camera was inches from his face. Metal groaned. Ishmael stood, curling his fists toward his chest.
Maurelli smiled back at him. They must have been in frame—likely what Maurelli was going for. She wanted her cursed face on film as much as she wanted to capture Ishmael’s.
“So no, I don’t give a damn about your secrecy,” she said to him.
Ishmael’s voice was manic. “You know what?” He laughed from the bowels up. “Me neither.”
From his neck, up his face, and down his spine, black fur oozed from every follicle. Thick brown stripes radiated out from his solar plexus around his ribs, under his armpits and over his shoulders, up the sides of his throat and over his cracking, lengthening, terribly feline muzzle, and finally, up his flattening forehead like lightning bolts. With his legs shortening but thickening, with jean seams snapping open, Ishmael leaned against the chains, pushing his arms toward Maurelli’s face, claws emerging a hair’s breadth from her widening eyes.
The floor cracked, sending shockwaves through the water. Concrete broke, and Ishmael’s submerged chains snapped forward like the strings of a slingshot. He caught Maurelli by the waist and brought her down, her legs sliding under him. Muscles quivered and flexed along Ishmael’s torso when he drew in breath, and he roared in her skeletal face. He picked her up and slammed her into the water and concrete below. He then lifted her up, and slammed her into the water again. He dragged her out and flung her toward a wall, knocking over six bonewalkers in the process.
He slid his stretched feet out of the shackles designed for human ankles.
“Finish it,” Two-Trees said.
Ishmael turned toward Two-Trees, snarling, elbows lifting with every loud breath, whiskered lips twitching in a snarl. He tucked his chin down, aiming his big, brow-shaded, honeydew eyes at Two-Trees.
Shit.
“Shit . . .” the boy with the camera said.
Ishmael snorted and pivoted.
“Oh,” the camera boy said.
Ishmael slashed the punk across the chest, grating claws against bone armour. The camera splashed into the water and bobbed on the surface. Ishmael returned his attention to Two-Trees.
Two-Trees was eleven years old again.
Red Cloud was thrown into his toppled La-Z-Boy. There was even blood on the ceiling.
The big grey werewolf was turning one foot pad at a time toward Two-Trees, tail lashing behind his legs, gobs of blood splashed from his nostrils to his eyes, making him squint and shake his head, spraying beads of water and saliva and blood all over the log cabin.
If he was going to die at eleven years old, then he’d die like his grandfather.
Two-Trees matched Ishmael’s stare.
Knives or no knives, gun or no gun, Two-Trees would kill with his bare hands.
Ishmael sprang from coiled legs to crash against Two-Trees’ body. Bonewalkers followed him, screaming, each armed with daggers for fingers and teeth. Ishmael grabbed hold of one of Two-Trees’ manacles and jerked it free of the chain, breaking it at the weakest link, near the cuff. Eight hands dug into the meat of Ishmael’s neck, yanking him away from Two-Trees. They collided onto the floor, driving a tidal wave of floodwater across the room.
There was a bare patch in the hollow of Ishmael’s throat. Fur was coming out in clumps across his left collar bone.
“Bring him down!” Maurelli screamed from the corner. Her skull had been broken open but the brain was intact. “Down-cycle, now!”
Ishmael’s big green eyes grew wider. He reached over his shoulder and pulled one of the bonewalkers into a forward flip, pinning him upside down against the wall, then drove his full weight into the boy and fell down with him, crushing the boy’s head sideways and snapping his neck.
But these are just kids!
Three more stuck to Ishmael like burrs, dragging him away. Two more came in.
The boy with the broken neck fell over, twitched, then began dragging himself to his feet, jerking his head and snapping his neck into alignment.
Never mind.
Two-Trees reached over to the other manacle to see if he could twist free or find a spring mechanism. While he picked at the bracelet, bonewalkers dragged Ishmael into the circle of light, where twelve adult-sized children fell on him with splashing punches and kicks. Two-Trees pulled and pulled, but his fat hand wouldn’t fold. He tried breaking his thumb, but he didn’t have the leverage. He licked his hand. Over his shoulder, he saw Maurelli stand, her skin growing over her cheeks and the crack in her skull stitching closed.
She was coming for Two-Trees.
“Two-Trees!” Ishmael shouted, from the bottom of the body pile. “Get out!”
Not for a lack of trying, Two-Trees thought, though fear had shut up and dried out his mouth. His ears were full of the sound of smacking teeth and tearing flesh. Ishmael was being consumed alive by human piranhas.
“Hungry,” Maurelli seethed. “Hungreeeeeee—”
Two-Trees back-kicked her in the chest, and he pulled and twisted his hand until the skin bled.
She rammed his forehead against the wall.
For a while, Two-Trees dangled from his arm, listening to the sound of static and rushing water. Sparkles twinkled in the dark. Painted fish.
“Hector!” Ishmael screamed. He was scared shitless. “Get up. Get up! Get up!”
Where’s Bridget?
“Hector!”
Two-Trees dragged himself off the floor, oozing up the wall that was covered with his nose blood. He pressed his back to the wall. I could go for a donut. His thoughts were sluggish, like the narration on a vinyl record played too slowly.
The door was open.
Why am I still alive? Where’s Maurelli?
The creature coming through the door was too tall for the paper mill’s basement. It had legs like driftwood, a lion’s mane of stiff white hair, curving yellow horns, sagging flaps where breasts should have been, and hands like rakes. Cream-white eyes jutted out from big black caverns of folded skin, staring blindly along a rotting dog’s muzzle. It squeezed through the door frame and knocked kerosene lamps down from their hooks. Fire sizzled and went out.
A man’s bloody fist broke through the gap between the shoulders of bloodthirsty children, only to be reincorporated into the mix of elbows and claws.
The wendigo unfolded a six-foot-long arm and caught one of the bonewalkers around the middle, lifted it to her maw, and chewed off the legs to the waist. The bonewalker tried to scream but the bottom of her lungs were gone. The wendigo chewed lazily. Before it had finished swallowing, it dislocated its jaw and shoved the child headfirst into its mouth.
In the midst of the writhing, biting, slashing mass of white flesh, Ishmael elbowed his way up for air, and he saw the wendigo.
Then he spied Two-Trees.
The wendigo turned. Pieces of teenager were stuck between her teeth. A bone poked out through a hole in her cheek. She stepped in pieces of teenager. Adolescence oozed out between her spindly fingers. The wendigo’s eyes hovered around Two-Trees’ body, as if not quite sure where he was, but following his scent and tuning ragged, deer-like ears in his direction.
Helix: Plague of Ghouls Page 36