Carnivores

by Richard Poche

  The wolf growled at Tannenbaum.

  Stiff-legged with fear, he knew he was a goner, but he tried running anyway. He ran toward the rear fence and climbed a few feet up before he felt the wolf's teeth sinking deep into his calf muscles.

  He screamed hysterically as the carnivore brought him down.

  “Make it quick!” he pleaded. “Make it quic-”

  The werewolf's bite into his throat granted his final plea of mercy.

  Hank put his car into drive when he heard the scream.

  He turned the vehicle around and headed toward the rear of the complex, entering the lot. Then he stopped and listened.

  He was about to get out when he felt something impact his vehicle from behind. The force was enough to snap his head back.

  A loud pop followed by a fizzing sound startled him. The car's rear driver side began lowering. Then the sound repeated itself.

  The back tires were deflating.

  “The hell-”

  Hank screamed as the beast jumped on his front window, the impact of its claws creating starlight cracks.

  The frost from the wolf's breath fogged up the glass, obscuring Hank's opportunity to finally look at the beast up close. It was the same monster that had terrorized him during the protest on the street.

  Hank slammed on the gas and put the car in reverse, the deflated tires making a flopping side.

  The beast slid down from the window and out of sight into the darkness.

  Hank sped all of the way home, his rear tires causing sparks on the asphalt.

  CHAPTER 17

  Hank entered his apartment and slammed the door shut. He walked over to the window and peered through. He saw a large cloudbank to the east, thick as clotted chocolate. He could see no movement on the streets.

  Hank plopped down on the sofa. After a few quiet moments, he heard a soft rap at the door.

  Hank ran to the kitchen and got a butcher knife from the drawer. Then he made his way back to the door and looked through the peek hole.

  “You can put the weapon down,” the old man called out. “I come in peace.”

  Hank opened the door. The old man gave an almost imperceptible smile.

  “And I'm old,” the man said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I've missed you at the flea market,” he said.

  Hank looked at the old man with suspicion. Then he looked left and right to make sure the man had come alone.

  “Can I come in?”

  Hank hesitated for a moment then stepped aside. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did you make the knives?”

  “How did you find out where I live?”

  “I have my ways,” the old man laughed. “Did you make the knives?”

  “I-,” Hank looked confused. “The knives?”

  “With the silverware I gave you.”

  “No.”

  “We'll need weapons,” he said. “I prefer knives.”

  “What?”

  “They have your scent,” the old man's eyes bore into Hank. “They will come for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The old man paused for a moment, appraising Hank. Then he made his way toward the window. “Do you hear that?”

  In the distance, they could hear wolves howling. Hank nodded.

  The old man opened the window and stuck his head out. The howls became louder.

  “Not too many people can,” he said.

  Hank moved toward the window. He saw the full moon in the sky.

  “My name is Henrik Vanderhorst,” the man said. “I'm your grandfather.”

  “I thought you were-”

  “Dead?” the old man shook his head. “Dead to your father, maybe. They killed him before we could reconcile. And maybe this is part of that reconciliation. You know the notion to put dead people to rest is extremely powerful in almost every society of the world. The Chinese burn paper money at funerals so that the dead will be rich when they get to heaven. In New Guinea, they pour mud over the corpses to make it easier for the body to return to the soil to which it came. And what is written on your dad's headstone? Rest in peace. We put that there because once our loved ones are dead they are facing an experience totally unlike their life when they were alive, physically and conceptually, and somehow we have this urgent drive to protect them, to see them through it to make sure that they are safe. And make sure they know that everything will be okay down here. You may think I'm crazy. That is fine. But your father will not rest knowing that you are not safe.”

  “My father was killed,” Hank said defensively, “by the police.”

  “Silver bullets killed your dad,” his grandfather said. “One of the officers figured it out. Your dad had been turned by the spirit. He went to the dark side. Denied who he was. You are from a long line of wolf slayers. Your father was one. He just denied it. And look what happened to him.”

  “I'm not the badass my dad was.”

  “You're nothing like him. Or me. But you don't have to be.”

  “He wanted a better life for me. Wanted everything to be better. Better job. Better wife. I have neither.”

  “Those things aren't the measure of a man,” his grandfather said. He lifted up his shirt and revealed numerous scars on his stomach and back. “You measure a man by his wounds.”

  Hank looked stupefied at the severity of the old man's scars.

  “Werewolves.” The old man stepped closer and grabbed both of Hank's hands. “These hands are blessed,” he said with a sad, philosophical smile. “The knives you created were a spiritual litmus. I could see the love and fire that you have.”

  The old man took out the knife that Hank had made. “I can see it in the way it was crafted. You have gifted hands that can create the knives to destroy them.”

  “The werewolves?”

  “Here, they call themselves the Lobos,” his grandfather continued, “but where I'm from we called them the Reuzenwolf.”

  “The Reuzenwolf?”

  “Our family has been fighting them for generations. They come from ancient Europe. Some say you can become a Reuzenwolf by just looking at one. That you may get the spirit by looking at a wolf even if it is one in a damn zoo. Back in Holland, we thought we killed all of them, but they moved to the States. Here, they are thriving. A protected species.”

  The old man picked up his bag of silverware. He reached in and took out a handful of forks among other utensils.

  “We have work to do.”

  Hank and Henrik drove to his rented workspace near the port of Oakland. Hank shared the communal loft with different artists who pooled their money together.

  His grandfather followed him inside, looking at Hank's works in progress.

  “They don't just want to kill you,” the old man picked up a long knife with a red marble handle. “They want to emasculate you. If they weaken you enough, you will not have children. You will give up and the line will end. So they don't even have to kill you. You are an end.”

  “I'm not planning on having kids.”

  The old man looked at him. “What if I want a great grandson?” he laughed. “When you die, the line ends. The Reuzenwolf will take over.”

  “I'm not that important.”

  “I see they have already done their damage to you.” He sighed hard, as if he saw Hank as a hopeless case. “You don't realize how powerful you are. How afraid of you they really are. But perception is more important than reality. If you think you cannot win, you will not.”

  Hank merely blinked.

  “In order to save the beauty, you must become the beast,” the old man said. “You have to forget everything that you have been taught. You must become a savage.”

  The old man began working the grinder with expert precision. His movements were quick but unhurried. He worked with a controlled and deliberate focus, his attitude nothing like the artsy fartsy hipsters he saw working the loft before him.

  Hank sat down next to his gra
ndfather. He put on his goggles and began to work.

  The sparks flew in the air as the two men sanded away on their weapons of choice.

  He chose the most beautiful marble he could find and constructed the handle, a red crystal handle that he polished and shined.

  Hank picked the color red because he wanted it match the color of the wolves' blood. Then he molded the silver down and created the blade.

  The knife had become the most beautiful thing he had ever created. It felt like it was made to fit into the palm of his hand. He swung the blade around, its menace whizzing through the night air.

  CHAPTER 18

  When Lopez was interviewed during his police academy enrollment, he was asked if he ever paid for sex.

  He said no.

  But it planted a seed in his head.

  A seed that had grown into a need that had to be satiated.

  The emotional fallout from discovering Frias's body left him jonesing for a sex fix. He needed sex like some people needed a drink. He made up his mind that the moment he went off duty, he would drive back to the strip and look for Lita.

  His heart skipped a beat, as he knew he would follow through with this desire.

  Because she was all he had thought about for hours.

  His father had warned him constantly about the perils of women. And Lopez didn't know why they didn't respond to him the way he thought they would.

  Lopez had always walked the straight and narrow, always did the right things, but found very few takers aside from the “big and beautiful.” He was engaged once to a “good Catholic girl” named Lourdes and she cheated on him with some guy she met at a Christmas party.

  He loved Lourdes. And she killed him. Killed a part of him that wanted to find a decent girl.

  Because in his mind, he became convinced that he would never find an angel. Angels don't exist. Only devils.

  And Lita was one devil he had to have.

  Turning the corner, she appeared like clockwork as she had before.

  He rolled down the window of his Acura. She poked her head in and recognized him from earlier.

  “Look, if you're going to bust me, bust me but-”

  “I'm here on business,” he said, putting his hands up. Then he put his police badge on the dash and flipped it upside down. “My personal business. Not police work.”

  Lita hesitated and shook her head.

  “You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” he whispered.

  “How do I know you're not bullshitting?”

  Lopez pulled out a mound of cash from his wallet and placed it on the dash.

  Lita appraised Lopez for a beat. She saw his eyes alight with uncertainty and lust. Then she got into his vehicle and kissed him on the lips.

  “Drive,” she said.

  Hank drove with his grandfather up into Oakland Hills. His grandfather looked idly out of the window. The sky was an unrelenting black, like an obsidian stone.

  “I know that this is a lot to take in,” the old man said. “The fact that there is another life form, more mystical and powerful than people care to explain. And in order for us to defeat it, to kill these creatures for good, we have to understand them clearly without any judgment or easy assumptions.”

  They drove another mile into the hills when they reached a clearing near Joaquin Miller Park.

  “Stop here,” the old man said as he exited the vehicle. Hank followed. “Walk soft.”

  “Walk soft?” Hank asked.

  The old man gave Hank an agitated look and put his forefinger to his lips.

  Hank followed the old man down a slope. He marveled at how the old man's nimble feet belied his age.

  But that did nothing to squelch his apprehension and fear. The silence of the hills bothered him.

  “I tracked them to that house,” the old man whispered. “There were too many for me take on by myself. Killing just one requires a luck and prayer.”

  “Why don't we just set the house on fire?”

  “They would be able to smell the gas before we'd even get a chance to light it,” the old man said.

  “And why knives? Why not silver bullets?”

  “I have a gun,” the old man said. “But the knives are for close quarters. It is damn hard to hit them with a bullet when they're on you in less than second. The fighting will take place up close. Hence the blades.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out two old sharp-shooting guns. They looked like something out of the civil war.

  “That being said,” the old man continued, “sometimes I like being Wyatt Earp.”

  They moved their way down to the house and peered over a bush.

  “There are four of them,” he said. “Maybe more by now.”

  Hank gulped hard. “I counted three.”

  “I've found that the direct approach works best. We go in and take them down. You don't think about how hard or dangerous this all is. You just shoot and stab and kill.”

  “I was hoping there would be some special skill you could teach me.”

  “Yeah,” the old man said. “Just kick some fucking ass. Plain and simple.”

  They snuck their way to the front of the house. It looked foreboding and dark. Nothing moved, just a shuttered window teetering with the wind.

  The old man reached the front door. He put his ear to the wood and nodded his head.

  Hank could feel his heart going nuclear in his chest. The din from the city below was the only sound, low and menacing. The wooden door of the house stood above them like an angel of death inviting them in.

  “We just go in and start shooting?”

  The old man smiled, his eyes burning for vengeance. “Knock, knock.” With a stunning swiftness, the old man kicked the door open and entered with gun in one hand and knife in the other.

  CHAPTER 19

  The stench of a thousand assholes filled their nostrils. Specks of feces covered the floor. Hank retched at the smell, bending over. His old man hoisted him back up.

  “Breath through your mouth,” he said.

  The house had been overturned. Hank looked down at the carpet and saw patches of long brown hair mixed in with yellow-colored shit. On one wall stood a glass case, almost impenetrably dusty, and inside it contained something that looked like a mummified dog.

  “El Chupacabra,” the old man muttered, appraising the animal within.

  Then he turned his attention to the deep scratches in the walls. If there were wolves here, they must have had some kind of epileptic fit.

  The old man then started scrutinizing the floorboards. Then he threw one of the rugs up and started stomping on the floor.

  “Gotta be a trap door here someplace,” the old man said.

  Hank began stomping on the floorboards, listening for a hollow sound.

  “They're one step ahead of us,” the old man shook his head. “That is what they are good at. Once the heat becomes too much, they move on to the next city. And the cycle begins again.”

  Hank saw that the old man became transfixed by a necklace on the wall with his white, wiry eyebrows raised.

  The necklace had been pinned to the wall like a trophy.

  “What?” Hank asked.

  “Mother fuckers,” the old man walked over to the wall and took down the necklace. “This belonged to your grandmother,” the old man paused for a long moment. “They're mocking me.”

  “This goes back that far?”

  “Your grandmother died when your father was very young,” he said. “People said she died in a car accident, in a hit and run. Her body was found at the side of the road. But I knew better. I know it was the Reuzenwolf. I vowed to kill them for our family's honor.”

  The old man put his hand on Hank's shoulder and Hank felt a bond between them, a grandfather and grandson bond that he had missed his whole life. He didn't want to let the old man down by telling him how scared he really was.

  “Dad never talked about it.”

  “It was too painful for him.
He was at an age where he would not be able to understand. I didn't think he could process what happened. But I think he figured it out when he got older and just blocked it out of his mind.”

  “But he said-”

  “That she left me? Yeah, she did. We had an argument and she left the house. I had looked for her and looked for her and couldn't find her. She grew tired of hearing about all my 'werewolf nonsense,' as she used to say. She thought I was crazy. And when she died on me, I did go crazy. People don't realize how tough it is for a man when his woman leaves. I could smell her perfume on her side of the bed for months and months after. Her closet had dresses and blouses that she would never wear again. What was I going to do? Throw them away? That would be like throwing her away. And the most painful part was the dreams. I dream that she is still alive and when I wake up, nothing. Then sometimes I dream about the wolves taking her.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “I killed one of the werewolves. Drank its blood. That is how I am alive. When their spirit dies, so will I. Then it will be up to you to continue the fight. And you will be a greater warrior than I.”

  Hank said nothing. He didn't want to let the old man down. He wished he had a courageous warrior within, a fearless wolf in his soul, but he knew he was just a guy who lived life with his thumb stuck up his bunghole.

  He felt like retching again. The stench of the room became too much to stand and listen to family history. He took quick steps to the back door and dry heaved upon exiting.

  As he descended down the steps, he noticed footprints in the mud. Large dog paws.

  The wolves.

  Hank started to walk back to the house and heard his grandfather.

  “Please, no!” he said. “I got the wrong house.”

  “Is that right, old man?”

  Hank peered through the window and saw two uniformed policemen confronting his grandfather.

  “Someone else here?” one of them asked. “Thought I heard someone dry heavin' out there.”

  He slowly backed down the steps and sped into the wooded area of the hills behind the home.