by Jeff Strand
Mr. Dewey turned his attention to Ally. "This can be very easy for you, young lady," he said. "Easier than a trip to the dentist with no cavities."
Though Ally wasn't scared of the dentist, Mr. Dewey's reassurance didn't comfort her in any way.
"I know the setup here looks very sinister," Mr. Dewey admitted, "but there won't be much more to this than me asking you some questions. If you answer them honestly, this will be over quickly and we'll send you on your way."
"I want to call my mom first."
"No."
"I've been gone for a while," said Ally. "She's scared out of her mind. You don't know her. She has panic attacks. She could end up in the hospital."
"Then I guess you'll be motivated to get this over with as quickly as possible. Cooperate with me now, and when you tell your mom you're safe, it'll actually be true."
Ally nodded.
"Question one: can you control when you change into a wolf?"
"No."
"Did you know you could do it before today?"
"No."
"What were you feeling before you changed?"
Ally hesitated. "I was feeling at peace."
Mr. Dewey sighed and leaned forward in his chair. "That is an incorrect answer. Since you'd just been kidnapped, your emotional state was not 'at peace.' You're already lying to me, Ally. That's not good."
"What I meant was that right as I changed, I felt at peace."
"No. That's not what you meant. What you meant was, 'I changed during a state of intense emotional stress, and I don't want them to try to replicate that.' Correct?"
Ally decided to stick to the lie. "No."
"All right. We may have to go from a no-cavities scenario to a root canal. Have you ever had a root canal?"
"No."
"They're not so bad. Of course, your dentist would use Novocain. And when he removed your front teeth, I doubt he'd use a claw hammer. I need you to take this seriously, Ally."
"I am."
"Make me believe it."
"I don't know what you want from me."
"The truth."
"I gave you the truth."
"You're not a good liar. Fortunately for you, if this does come down to torture, we won't be starting with you. We'll be starting with your friend Lou."
"He's not my friend."
"Still holding a grudge? That's reasonable, I guess. Friend, enemy...the point of having him here is that once we start opening up his face with the claw end of the hammer I mentioned before, you're going to wish you had cooperated back when this could have been a nice and simple Q&A session."
Ally felt so sick to her stomach that she was surprised she didn't just throw up right there. It was too late to not cry, but hopefully she could avoid turning into a complete blubbering mess.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"You're forgiven. Let's skip the questions and get right to the meat of the matter." Mr. Dewey stood up. "I want you to bite me."
"Where?"
Mr. Dewey pulled up his sleeve. "Right here. A good bite on the arm. Break the skin."
Ally couldn't believe that he was serious. Why would anybody want to become a monster?
Still standing, Mr. Dewey placed his arm in front of her mouth. "Bite hard. Stop when I tell you to."
What if she lied and said that she was HIV-positive? Would he abandon the whole idea, or would he see right through that and take out the claw hammer?
Better not to find out.
"Okay." Ally noticed that the henchman was now pointing a gun at her. Did it have silver bullets? If she changed into a werewolf during the bite, would he shoot her in the head, to make sure she didn't chew off Mr. Dewey's entire arm?
Ally opened her mouth. Mr. Dewey pushed the back of his arm against it, just below the elbow.
The henchman looked amused. Mr. Reith looked slightly appalled. Ally was terrified; she could handle biting the guy, no problem, but would he retaliate if it hurt more than he was expecting?
"Do it," said Mr. Dewey.
Ally pressed her teeth against his skin, then slowly bit down. If Mr. Dewey made any sounds like he was getting a thrill out of this, Ally was going to kill herself.
So far, he wasn't reacting, though she didn't like the way he was staring into her eyes as she bit.
"You're holding back," he said. "Just bite me. It's okay."
Ally bit down harder. Not as hard as she could, but hard enough that she could feel his skin giving way beneath her teeth and taste the first hint of blood.
He still didn't flinch.
She could feel two trickles of blood running down her chin.
"That should do it," said Mr. Dewey. "Thank you."
Ally opened her mouth and he pulled his arm away. The wound glistened. He looked at the bite mark as if admiring a beautiful painting in a museum, and didn't seem to be in any hurry to apply a bandage or antiseptic.
"Is that it?" Ally asked, not daring to be hopeful.
"Sadly, no. I'm covering all of my bases here. Your bite may have worked, but it would be ridiculous to set you free after you've only given me a human bite. I need a wolf bite. So we're going to be here for as long as it takes you to change. Hopefully it won't be long."
"I don't know how."
"You'll learn."
Ally had never stopped trying. She had no idea how to turn back into a wolf. She certainly didn't feel less frightened and stressed out now than she had in the van.
"I'm not lying. I don't know how to do it."
"You may just need a little push. Something to get the adrenaline flowing. Something extremely painful."
Lou spoke up. "Hey, Reith, are you gonna let him get away with this?"
Mr. Reith looked surprised by the question. "I beg your pardon?"
"He's threatening to torture a teenaged girl. You into that?"
Mr. Reith smiled. "I'm into whatever measures are necessary to accomplish the end result."
"Is that so? Because you totally boned us on this job. It's a freaking miracle that we were able to nab her. Does Dewey know how you set us up to fail, even when his life was at risk if we didn't catch her? What would you have done if she'd escaped from us, or if we'd gotten arrested?"
Mr. Reith shrugged. "Right now we're exactly where we want to be, so it's irrelevant."
"He wouldn't even tell us her name," said Lou to Mr. Dewey. "You know what would've helped? Her name. We could've been waiting for her at her house instead of following her in a van, attracting everyone's attention."
"I admire your attempt to try to turn us against each other," said Mr. Dewey. "It's almost smart. But it's not going to work, so think of something else."
"I'll let you know what I come up with."
"Julian, get the drill."
The henchman broke into a wide grin as he walked over to the closest shelf. He picked up a dark blue power drill, held it up as if posing with a handgun, then brought it to Mr. Dewey.
Mr. Dewey inspected the drill, then removed the bit. "You know what? I've changed my mind. Bring me the smaller bit."
Julian got him a narrower bit. Mr. Dewey snapped it into the drill, then waved it in front of Ally's face.
"I was originally going to use this on Lou, to let you see first-hand how messy this process can be. When a big, tough man like Lou was shrieking in agony and pleading for me to stop, you'd understand that this was not a bluff. Unfortunately for you, I've decided that we don't need a pre-show. This drill is going into your ankle. To start."
Mr. Dewey touched the drill bit to Ally's ankle.
She frantically shook her head. "No! Please don't!"
"I'm going to give you ten seconds to transform. And then I'm going to press the button, and this spinning metal drill will start to bore its way into your foot."
"Don't do it!"
"Leave her alone!" Lou shouted.
"Is that really in your best interest, Lou? I'd keep quiet, if I were you."
"Please don't do it," Ally begged. "Plea
se don't. I lied to you, okay? I lied. I can control the change." Her heart was racing and she was drenched in sweat and her voice was so off-kilter that she wasn't sure if anybody could even understand what she was saying.
"Then that's very convenient," said Mr. Dewey.
"I—I've been able to do it for a couple of years now," said Ally, praying that Mr. Dewey couldn't tell that she was lying again.
"Interesting. So do it now."
"I can't."
"Why not."
"I can't do it with Lou in the room."
Mr. Dewey raised an eyebrow, confused.
"He touched me," Ally explained. "In the van." They couldn't possibly know the full timeline of how things played out between her two abductions, could they?
"What do you mean?"
"Do you need me to touch a teddy bear? What do you think I mean?"
Lou, apparently playing along, looked down at his feet as if mortified.
"Hmm," said Mr. Dewey.
"I can't think about anything else while he's here. I can't focus. I need to be able to focus."
Ally began to sob. She wasn't much of an actress, but she'd been struggling to keep her emotions under control all of this time, so releasing them was easy.
It actually felt good to let it all out.
"That true, Lou?" Mr. Dewey asked.
Lou didn't respond.
"I asked you a question."
"No," said Lou. "She's full of shit."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. She's trying to pull something over on you."
"Hmm." Mr. Dewey hadn't removed the drill bit from Ally's ankle. "Those kinds of tendencies would be news to me, but maybe you just don't have a lot of opportunity to indulge in them, huh, Lou?"
Lou looked up and held Mr. Dewey's gaze for a couple of seconds, then looked away.
Lou got what she was doing, right? He seemed to be giving a brilliant performance.
"Please," said Ally, "just take him out of here. Take him away. Then I'll change, I promise."
Mr. Dewey kept the drill pressed against Ally's ankle. "Lou, Lou, Lou, you sick little pervert. I guess when you're stuck for months with only George for company, stuff builds up, huh? Can't control the ol' impulses? Well, it's not my thing, but I'm not one to judge."
"I am," said Mr. Reith. "It's disgusting. If we do abide the young woman's request and remove him from the room, I think he should be castrated."
Mr. Dewey grinned. "You heard the man, Lou. Say farewell to your manhood."
"I didn't do anything!" Lou insisted. "She's a liar!"
"I can only believe one side of the story, and too bad for you, I'm believing the side where you're a very naughty boy." Mr. Dewey pointed to Julian. "Get this deviant out of here."
Julian walked over to Lou's chair. He kept a gun pointed at Lou's head with one hand, while unfastening the straps with the other.
Ally desperately wished that Mr. Dewey would remove the drill.
It was kind of awkward for Julian to unfasten the straps using only one hand, but he got most of them done without too much apparent difficulty. Before he unfastened the strap on Lou's hand, Julian tapped the barrel of his gun against Lou's temple.
"I've got permission to blow his brains out if he tries anything, right?" Julian asked Mr. Dewey.
"Of course."
"You hear that, tough guy? You're lucky I don't put you out of your child-molesting misery right now."
"Don't talk to him," said Mr. Dewey. "Just take him away."
"Sorry, sir." Julian unfastened the strap. Then he crouched down, pointing the gun between Lou's legs, and began to unfasten the straps on his feet.
Lou did not look happy about the gun placement.
Ally was just trying to get Lou a single instant where he could do something. There was a good chance that this instant might involve a bullet to the crotch, but they were going to torture and kill him anyway, right?
Julian unfastened the final strap.
This was the instant.
Ally threw her head back and let out the loudest, most agonized-sounding shriek she possibly could.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Glorious Chaos
Lou had been a professional criminal for all of his adult life, and most of his teenage years. He'd had many guns pointed at him. They didn't scare him much anymore. Unless, of course, they were pointed at his dick.
His genitals had retreated to the best of their ability, as if he'd spent hours in a swimming pool, but that wouldn't protect them if Julian pulled the trigger. He couldn't go out like this. Not shot in the dick. Please, no.
He wasn't one hundred percent sure what Ally was intending with her accusation. He thought, and hoped, that her plan was to buy him an opportunity to escape. He'd have to take out three men, one of whom was currently pointing a gun at his junk, but it was flattering that she had so much faith in him.
Or maybe she'd just figured that if she accused him of being a pedophile, they'd focus all of their attention on him for a while. Postpone the drill-through-the-ankle for a while longer. Around guys like these, it was a dangerous plan; they could've said, "Hey, that's a wonderful idea! Why didn't we think of that?"
Lou would be optimistic and assume it was the former.
What was he going to do?
His one option seemed to be: punch Julian in the head once the last strap was unfastened, and pray to every freaking concept of God that existed in the history of humanity that Julian didn't pull the trigger.
Don't. Shoot. Off. My. Dick.
Lou didn't know if Mr. Reith was packing a gun or not. To keep himself sane, he was going to assume that the old man would not be a major factor in his escape attempt. Mr. Dewey and his drill would be a problem, as would the several heavily armed men that were hanging out elsewhere in the warehouse.
Okay, his primary focus would be not getting his dick shot off, and then a very close second would be trying to get Mr. Dewey into some sort of hostage situation.
He could do this.
He hadn't contributed much so far, thanks to the tranquilizer darts, but he could do this.
What he'd do is, as soon as Julian unfastened the last strap, he'd knee him in the face. Break his nose. Hit him so hard and so unexpectedly that he'd let go of the gun instead of pulling the trigger and sending a bullet deep into Lou's shaft.
As soon as Julian unfastened the last strap, Ally threw back her head and screamed bloody murder.
Julian flinched, startled.
He flinched even more as Lou kneed him in the face.
Both of Julian's hands went to his mouth. Lou had missed his nose but delivered one hell of a knee to Julian's jaw, possibly breaking it.
Julian was still holding the gun, so clutching at his jaw with both hands created a slapstick moment involving smacking a gun into his own injured face that would probably be amusing in retrospect, although right now Lou was concentrating too hard on getting the weapon away from him to enjoy it.
Lou stood up.
Ally's scream changed, getting much higher in pitch. Lou was focused on Julian, but in his peripheral vision he thought he saw the drill boring into her foot. There was definitely some blood.
Lou stomped on Julian's foot and grabbed for his gun.
This was another slapstick moment that would, if he lived to recount this adventure later, be delightfully amusing. It wasn't so amusing now, because Lou was a big guy, and he had big feet, and he was putting every ounce of strength into this stomp, so instead of a wacky sound effect, Julian's foot shattered with a grotesque crunch.
Now there were two people screaming in the room.
Lou ripped the gun out of Julian's hand, snapping Julian's trigger finger in the process.
Mr. Dewey stood up. Droplets of blood flew off the drill bit as it spun.
Ally was screaming and thrashing around in the chair. She did not, unfortunately, look like she was changing into a wolf.
Lou shot Julian in the forehead. Before the poor
guy's body even collapsed, Lou dove at Mr. Dewey. Lou didn't want to take a drill to the side if he could help it, but it wouldn't be fatal, and this was not the time for cautious, timid behavior.
Mr. Dewey thrust the drill at Lou.
Got him in the chest.
Julian had stopped screaming immediately after the back of his head exploded, but now they were back to two people screaming in the room.
Lou pointed the gun at Mr. Dewey's face.
Almost pulled the trigger.
No!
He needed Mr. Dewey as a hostage.
Mr. Dewey backed away a step. Lou's chest hurt like hell, but blood wasn't spraying, and until he discovered otherwise Lou was going to pretend that no internal organs were punctured.
Lou wasn't sure what Mr. Reith was doing. He hoped to not become the kind of person who would bash an old man unconscious with his own cane, but if it came to that...
Having Mr. Dewey at gunpoint wasn't enough. If his men burst into the room—and they would, any moment now—they could just fire a few rounds into Lou's back without putting their boss or the werewolf at risk.
Sure, he could eventually get Mr. Dewey where he needed to be through the process of threatening him with the gun, but there was no time for any kind of conversation. So Lou lunged at him again.
Mr. Dewey jabbed at him with the drill, which tore across Lou's chest like a rock skipping across a pond, while Lou twisted himself around, trying to get Mr. Dewey in a headlock.
He did, just as the door flew open.
"Stay back!" Lou shouted, pressing the gun against Mr. Dewey's neck. "Stay back or he's dead!"
"Do what he says," said Mr. Dewey.
This still wasn't a great position. Lou shifted a bit, to make sure that Mr. Dewey's body was mostly in front of his, and that the gun was clearly visible.
"Drop the drill."
Mr. Dewey dropped the drill.
One man was in the room, pointing a gun at Lou. Another man stood in the doorway, also with a gun, and Lou could see Sean and Brent, the guys who'd driven him from Ontario to Tropper, standing behind him.
"Everybody lower your guns or I swear I'll kill him," said Lou. "I've got nothing to lose! Don't test me!"
Lou was telling the truth. If they didn't listen, he would indeed put a round into Mr. Dewey's skull and then take out as many of the others as he could before he went down in a flurry of bullets.