by Jeff Strand
WOLF HUNT 2
By Jeff Strand
Wolf Hunt 2 copyright 2014 by Jeff Strand
Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansen.com
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.
For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com
Also available in a deluxe hardcover collector's edition from Dark Regions Press. http://www.darkregions.com
CHAPTER ONE
Catching Up With George and Lou
George Orton and Lou Flynn sat in their living room, which was also their kitchen and bedroom, sipping margaritas and watching a terrible but weirdly addictive telenovela.
"That kid's not really his," Lou said.
"Y'think?"
"It's Ramon's."
"You're out of your frickin' mind. She doesn't have any feelings for Ramon."
"That's what makes it so tragic! She's carrying his baby and she doesn't even love him. Ignacio suspects, though. You can see it in his eyes."
"No way in hell did she hook up with Ramon," said George. "They're totally wrong for each other."
"You can't tell me there's no way they didn't hook up even once. He's hot, she's hot, they're both recovering alcoholics—I'm telling you, that baby is his. Just watch. You'll see that I'm right."
"Not a chance."
"Want to put some money on it?"
"Nah."
"One peso. Just to make it interesting."
"We're not going to be here long enough to find out how it turns out."
Lou sighed and reached for his drink. He reached with the wrong arm—the one that no longer had a hand—then switched and picked it up in his right hand. He kept one of four different handkerchiefs wrapped around the stump. Today's was dark blue. "I know we said that we were just laying low for a while, but I like it here. Nobody telling us what to do. Catching up on our reading. Learning a new language."
George glared at him. "You understand that we're living in a shithole, right? An inferno shithole. I used to fantasize about beautiful women; now I fantasize about not being drenched in sweat twenty-four hours a day. I whack off to pictures of glaciers. Don't you miss A/C?"
"Sure, I wish it wasn't so hot," Lou admitted, "but isn't it kind of nice to lounge around in shorts? We always had to dress up before. I hate ties."
"Don't talk about ties. If you remind me that we own a tie, I'll use one to hang myself."
"I'm not saying that if I could pick anyplace in the entire world to live, this would be it. I'm just saying that being broke and hiding out isn't as bad as I thought it would be."
"Well, thank you Mr. Pollyanna Sunshine Sparklepants. Who needs running water when I've got a great big ray of optimism with me? Your radiant smile just fills me with—"
A bullet came through their wall, shattering George's margarita glass.
Several more gunshots fired as George and Lou dove to the floor. They'd been living in Costa Rica for two months, and about three days ago George had finally gotten out of the paranoid habit of keeping his gun with him at all times.
George scrambled across the floor toward his bed as bullets continued to tear through the very thin walls. There were at least two different shooters.
Lou let out a cry of pain.
George glanced back at him. Lou hadn't been shot; in the chaos of the moment he'd tried to crawl with his stump.
The shots stopped just as George reached under the bed and grabbed his loaded revolver. He could return a few blind shots and hope to get lucky, but lots of little kids lived in this area, and George didn't want to take a chance on shooting one who was trying to see what the excitement was all about.
George grabbed Lou's gun and slid it across the floor to him. Because their crappy floorboards were warped, it came up a couple of feet short.
Another shot. This one cracked the TV screen.
George fired at the new bullet hole in the wall. Somebody on the other side let out a yelp. Disappointingly, it didn't sound like a fatal yelp.
He looked around at the dozen or so bullet holes, trying to keep track of all of them at once, waiting for somebody outside to block the light. His whole body was tense and somehow he'd found new sweat to pump out of his pores.
One of the holes right next to the window darkened.
George fired. A few specks of blood hit the glass.
He got to his feet and rushed for the front door. It was a risk, but hiding under the bed wouldn't keep him alive for very long. He opened the door, quickly peeked to the right, and saw a man clutching at his bloody side. He'd dropped his gun.
George shot him in the leg. He fell to the ground.
Lou followed George outside. "I'll check on the other guy," said Lou, hurrying around the corner of their shack. The injured guy made a grab for his gun, but George stepped on his hand and crouched over him.
It was a young guy, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. Nobody George recognized.
Some of the neighbor brats were already coming over to see what was going on, so George shooed them away. "Get out of here! You wanna get shot?"
Lou came back around. "Other guy's dying. I don't see any more of them."
George pushed the barrel of his revolver against the young guy's face. "Are there any more pieces of crap like you around here?"
The young guy shook his head. "Dude, call an ambulance."
George glanced at his wounds. "You're not going to bleed to death yet. Did Bateman send you?"
"Bateman? Where've you been? Got his head chopped off weeks ago."
"Oh. Good. So you work for Dewey?"
"Yeah."
"You seem pretty green. Is that the best he can do, send a kid after us?"
"Ummmmm...how important do you guys think you are? This was a training job for me. I don't even get paid. You killed my mentor!"
"How much cash do you have on you?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to steal it, numbnuts. Roll over."
The kid rolled over with a wince. George took his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped through the contents. About sixty bucks in United States currency. George was ashamed to admit that this was a pretty big score.
More children were starting to gather. George waved his gun in the air. "I said, get out of here! What's the matter with you?" The children scattered.
"You gonna kill me?" asked the kid.
"Nah. Lou's going to use his switchblade to carve a message into your back to deliver to your boss. It'll say 'To whom it may concern, please note that Mr. George Orton and Mr. Louis Flynn wish to express their displeasure over the fact that a low-level underling was sent to end their lives. They would like to officially register a complaint about this disrespectful treatment, and formally request that it never happen again. Most sincerely yours, George and Lou.'"
"That a joke?"
"Yes."
"I don't wanna die."
"I already said that we weren't killing you. Stop being so whiny. What proof were you supposed to bring back?"
"Proof?"
"Proof of our demise. Photographs of our corpses? Our heads? What?"
"Nothing."
"Yeah, right."
"Seriously. You think I want severed heads in my car when I'm crossing the border? And I can't go around taking pictures of dead bodies when I've got my phone set to synch with the Cloud." The kid coughed up some blood. "Not t
o be rude or nothing, but again, you're not as big of outlaws as you think you are."
George shrugged. "Fair enough. So are you willing to go back and tell them that you killed us? It's win/win."
"Sure, sure. I'll do that. No problem."
George glanced over at Lou. "Pack our stuff. We're getting out of here."
Lou, looking sad, walked back inside their shack. He came back out a moment later and tossed George's vibrating cell phone to him. George frowned and touched "Accept Call" on the screen. "Ricky?"
"Thank God you answered! Hey, I know I'm not supposed to know that this phone number exists, but I need to warn you that Dewey sent two men to hunt you down. They could be at your place any minute now. I'm taking a huge risk by telling you this, and I could end up on their list if anybody finds out that I gave you a heads-up, but you and Lou need to get out of there as soon as possible!"
"You're a bit late."
"Oh, no! Did they get Lou?"
"No."
"Oh. Okay, good to hear. You're not going to squeal on me, are you?"
"Nah."
"So how are things going? Is Costa Rica nice? I thought I might check it out someday."
George hung up on him and stuffed the cell phone into his pocket. Lou went back into their shack. George returned his attention to the kid.
"The story is, your mentor put a bullet in Lou's forehead. Then I killed your mentor. He died bravely. I shot you, but you took me out before I could finish you off. Sound okay?"
The kid nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm all for that. Can you take me to the hospital?"
"Nope."
"C'mon, Mr. Orton. I've got a shot leg."
"A good Samaritan will help you out." George waved his gun at the children again. "I said, get out of here, you suicidal twerps! Don't you know what bullets are?"
George knew that the kid wasn't really going to stick to their story. Still, they had to abandon this place anyway, so he and Lou might as well buy themselves some time by pretending that they believed he'd lie on their behalf.
It didn't take long for Lou to fill the trunk of their car with their meager possessions, and they drove off, unsure of the next stop on their journey.
* * *
"It's frickin' freezing," said George. How did anybody live in this environment? He and Lou were wrapped in blankets, huddled next to their tiny space heater, but it wasn't doing enough to counteract the Northern Ontario climate.
"It's not so—"
"Do not say anything positive about our situation! I mean it, Lou. This is not a time for the glass to be half-full. This is a time for misery and complaining."
"I'm just—"
"I will break a fucking icicle off my chin and stab you with it if you try to be happy."
"Maybe you should grow a beard like mine. They're pretty warm."
George ignored him. They sat there for a while, shivering.
Lou finally spoke again: "Better than being hot, though, right?"
"Yes. And having a toenail yanked out is better than having a fingernail yanked out."
"Is it? I'd think that a toenail would be worse."
"Are you crazy?"
"They're bigger. More surface area to hurt."
"You only have one hand," George said. "How can you possibly say that you'd rather have a fingernail ripped out?"
"I guess I was being more hypothetical about it. And maybe you're right; I bet a finger has more nerves."
George sighed, watching his breath mist in the air in front of him.
Lou smiled. "At least I have one less hand to be cold."
Their front (and only) door burst open. Three men rushed inside, all of them wearing facemasks and holding guns.
"Lose the blankets!" said the man in front.
George and Lou tossed their multiple layers of blankets to the floor, revealing their lack of weaponry.
"At least shut the door behind you," said George. "You're letting out all of the heat."
A fourth man walked into their shack, closing the door behind him. Jonathan Dewey grinned at them. "Hello, George and Lou. How nice to finally meet you in person."
CHAPTER TWO
An Unhappy Crime Lord
George squeezed his eyes shut as the gasoline splashed against his face, but there was nothing he could do to keep it out of his nostrils. He couldn't stop himself from coughing, so some gas got into his mouth as well.
"Don't be stingy with it," said Mr. Dewey, as one of his men, a mean looking ginger, poured fuel from the plastic container directly onto George's head. "That's right, get him all nice and soaked."
The other two guys had taken Lou outside. While being tied to the wooden desk chair, George had listened closely for the sounds of his partner having the crap beat out of him, but hadn't heard anything. He hoped that didn't mean they'd quietly murdered him.
The ginger shook out the last few drops of gasoline, then let go of the container. It bonked George on the head and fell to the floor.
Mr. Dewey casually slipped a hand into the pocket of his coat. "Tell me, how does it feel to be such a fire hazard?"
"You practice that line on the way over?"
"No, George. I did not." Mr. Dewey took out a lighter. "Do you really think that now is the time to be disrespectful? My last memory of you is not going to be of you saying something clever. It's going to be of you shrieking in absolute agony while your body burns. Do you think you can be witty while your hair is on fire?"
George did not think he could be witty under those circumstances.
He had no intention of leaving this world begging for his life. At the same time, there was no good reason to let Mr. Dewey light him up without finding out if a sincere apology might help.
"I'm sorry we messed up," George said. "I'm not trying to offer excuses, but jobs go bad all the time, and this one involved a werewolf. If any job is going to go bad, it's going to be the one with the werewolf, right?"
"Do you have any cloth?" Mr. Dewey asked.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"We've got towels in the bathroom."
Mr. Dewey shook his head. "Too soft. I just want to make sure I don't get gasoline on myself." He walked over to the kitchen sink, unspooled some paper towels, and wrapped them tightly around his fist. Then he punched George in the face, almost knocking the chair over. He unwrapped his fist and tossed the paper towels into the sink.
"The werewolf was in a cage," Mr. Dewey said.
George's newly split lip felt like it had already been lit on fire. "Yeah, yeah, he was. But we weren't given proof that he was a real werewolf."
"You didn't need proof! He was in a cage! All you had to do was not open the goddamn cage!"
"I understand how it can seem like we were irresponsible," George admitted. "But we didn't just open up the cage for kicks. Nobody told us 'Hey, don't get too close to the bars, because he can change his human arm into a werewolf arm whenever he wants.' I'm not saying that Lou and I didn't screw up, but the disaster would have been avoided if we'd been given all of the information up-front."
"Are you blaming me?" Mr. Dewey asked.
George shook his head. "I'm blaming Bateman. He's the one who briefed us."
"Throwing a dead man under the bus. Very classy."
"It's the truth," said George. And it was, although George wouldn't have fallen into a deep moral quandary if it wasn't.
"Do you know why I wanted you to bring me a werewolf?"
George had a couple of theories, but sharing them would get him punched again. "I heard that you wanted to get bit."
"That's right. I'm dying. Brain cancer. Inoperable."
"Sorry to hear that."
Mr. Dewey smiled. "Yes, I'm sure you're heartbroken."
"So...you thought that becoming a werewolf could cure you?"
"Complete change in my body chemistry? Worth a shot."
"Fair enough."
"Which means that when Ivan escaped, and you failed to recapture him, you c
ost me my last opportunity at life." Mr. Dewey flicked on the lighter and waved the flame a couple of feet in front of George.
"Wait!" George said. He could not immediately think of a reason that Mr. Dewey might want to wait, so he said "Wait!" again as he desperately tried to come up with something.
"And why would I do that?"
"Ivan can't have been the only one. There's got to be another werewolf out there, somewhere!"
Mr. Dewey let the flame go out. "Actually, there is."
"For real?"
"Yes. In Minnesota, if you can believe it."
George didn't think that any one place was a more surprising werewolf location than any other place. "Lou and I have dealt with these things," he said. "You need us."
"And your experience is the only reason you're not going to die tonight," said Mr. Dewey, putting the lighter back into his pocket. "You're going to get the wolf for us, and you're going to bring it back. If you do this, we're even. If you screw it up again, I won't grant you the mercy of just burning you to death."
Mr. Dewey gestured, and the ginger cut the ropes. George stood up and resisted the urge to shake the gasoline off his body like a dog after a bath.
"Lou too, right?" he asked.
"Of course."
George's bullshit meter was going off in a big way. Yes, they had experience with Ivan the Werewolf, but that experience had involved frantically chasing after him while he went on a gleeful slaughter spree. Lots of innocent people had died before they were able to force-feed Ivan some silver. There was nothing about that day to indicate that George and Lou might be good candidates for a second werewolf-delivery assignment.
Still, he wasn't going to argue. He didn't care if there was more to the story as long as he wasn't going to be burned alive.
"So what's the next step?" George asked.
"You're going to take a shower at gunpoint. And then we will demonstrate how to properly transport a werewolf."
* * *
George and Lou sat in a cage in the back of a van.
It was the exact type of cage Ivan had been in, and though this was more than a little demeaning, George was not inclined to complain about his accommodations right now. At least the van had heat.