by Tony Lewis
A man sitting opposite them leaned forward and spoke. “That’s a common misconception. Lycanthropes can change their form at will. We’re not at the mercy of the lunar cycle, like most people think. We transform when we feel the need to.”
“When you’re hungry, you mean.”
The man smiled. “Not really. We do feed, of course, but that is secondary to our desire to be amongst nature, roaming the forest at will. Certainly a large part of our time as a wolf is spent hunting, but there’s more to us than mere slaughter.”
“Well, you would be one with nature if you eat it, I suppose.”
“About the disappearances,” interrupted Ollie before Stitches’ complete lack of tact got them both stripped and gutted.
“Ah yes, well, we’ve lost two far. Isobel and Ross.”
“Were they on their own when they went hunting in the forest?”
“Yes, they were. Werewolves always hunt alone. They went out as usual, except this time they didn’t come back as planned, which is very strange. The transformation is extremely stressful on the individual experiencing the process, so if you combine that with a night spent tracking through the forest, you end up with a being that is intensely tired, which is why a pack member will always, without exception, return to the lair. And to pre-empt your next question, a Lycanthrope will never leave a pack once they’ve been accepted as a member.”
“Never?”
“Never. We may spend a lot of our time on individual exploits, but we will always return to the place we call home. To us, it would be like leaving the bosom of a close family.”
Stitches, trying desperately to get the word bosom out his head, said, ”Isn’t it possible that the two people you mentioned just got fed up with commune life and decided to leave? These extraordinary abilities that you all have and the safety of a vampire protected existence wouldn’t necessarily stop someone from getting fed up with all of it. Maybe they just needed a change, so to speak.”
“Elegantly put,” replied Obsidia. “But please take this from me as being the absolute truth, it does not happen. We are a happy group here and like all other packs, wherever they are, once you are a member you stay a member.”
Ollie fixed her with a steely glare, but she didn’t bat an eyelid under his scrutiny. “Is it by desire or pressure that people stay? I don’t wish to cast aspersions, but it’s very easy to extol the virtues of something and proclaim disbelief when people become disenchanted with it and want no more part of it. I’m sorry, but please understand that I’m not being accusatory, I happen to feel it’s relevant.”
Obsidia smiled at him and her eyes sparkled like a pair of fresh water lagoons in the midday sun. “No apology required, you ask a relevant question. Take it from me please, Ollie, no one is pressured to remain. Such are the close relationships that we build within our community. It’s nature’s law, it happens naturally, the way of the fold.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” said Stitches. “Kind of cosy.” He gave Obsidia a wink and then, under the guise of having an itchy eye, pushed his eyelid back up to where it should be.
“Yes, it is, “she replied, oozing sexuality that threatened to overwhelm the zombie that it was directed at. “Maybe you should stay with us for a short while and learn a bit more about our culture.”
Stitches got his mouth half way open to reply, but was interrupted by his boss, who had no intention whatsoever of finding out exactly how these creatures lived.
“Maybe after we’ve finished working on the case we could pay you a social visit, but that could be a while considering the lack of information that we’ve got.”
“Mmmm“, said Stitches, temporarily diverted from their lustful hostess, “you’d think, bearing in mind who’s gone missing, that we’d have more leads.”
While Obsidia looked at him and shook her head ever so slightly, and Ollie buried his head in his hands, not believing that the zombie could have made it to two hundred years of age without getting lots of bells kicked out of him on a regular basis, the large man that had spoken to them on their arrival left his seat and walked over to where Stitches was sitting. He was enormous, about six feet six and built like a tank. A tank that had spent long hours down the gym and put enough chemicals in its system to kill a donkey. Even his hair looked like it was flexing its muscles. He grabbed the zombie by the throat in one massive hand and lifted him clean off the seat and into the air. They were now face to face, but Stitches’ feet were dangling eight inches off the floor.
“If you’ve come here to help us find out what’s happened to our friends, that’s fine, but one more wise crack and I’ll snap you in half.” He threw the startled zombie back down onto the sofa and stormed out of the room.
“Ooo, someone’s tired,“ he said, rubbing his neck and wincing at the thought of the hand print that was going to remain branded on his flesh until he could get to an iron.
“That’ll teach you,” scolded Ollie.
Obsidia waved a graceful hand and spoke in a soothing tone as she rubbed Stitches on the shoulder. “It’s not his fault. That’s Ethan. Isobel is his younger sister, and he’s taken her disappearance hard.”
Stitches did look genuinely upset. He stared at his feet and spoke quietly. “Maybe I should go and apologise,” he offered.
“I wouldn’t,” replied Obsidia with a flick of her lustrous hair. “Best to let him calm down on his own. He’ll be fine.”
There was silence in the room for a few seconds. Ollie left it as long as he thought prudent before deciding to break the palpable tension that had settled over the assembled people. “So when did they actually go missing?” he enquired.
“Last night and the night before. As I said they went out as normal but never came back.”
“Have any of the other members been out searching for them?”
Obsidia stood and crossed the room to a coffee table to get herself a drink.
“Anything?” They both shook their heads. “We’ve all been out at one point or another. We’ve scoured the forest and been everywhere that they could possibly be. Even with our heightened senses we haven’t been able to find a trace. Another member, James, is out now.”
Ollie frowned and watched as she paced elegantly back to the sofa and sat down.
“Isn’t that a little foolish bearing in mind what’s been happening?” he asked.
“Don’t think we didn’t try and stop him, but James and Isobel are what you might call something of an item. They’ve been partners for a while now so it was next to impossible to persuade James that it might not be the wisest course of action.”
“I see your point.”
“Well,” said Stitches, “it looks like we’ve exhausted all the lines of enquiry here for the moment wouldn’t you say, Boss? Maybe we should move on.”
Obsidia stroked his knee and blessed him with her most sultry and flirtatious smile.
“Stay a while longer. Hopefully James will return soon and he may have some information for you. I’m sure we can keep you occupied in the meantime.”
Ollie shrugged his shoulders and relaxed into the soft leather of the sofa. “Couldn’t hurt. Looks like we’re going to need all the help we can get on this one.”
* * *
Flug was bored. In fact he had gone way beyond bored, and was currently almost halfway through counting his fingers, an activity that was as alien to the monster as going to the shops, buying what you want and going straight home again was to your wife. That’s controversial, but ask any chap who’s suffered the indignity of standing forlorn in a clothes shop whilst his good lady is trying on her seventeenth outfit, and see if he agrees. A trek to the North Pole wearing nothing but your pants, standing on a sled pulled by hamsters is less taxing. Quieter, too.
To be fair, he had made quite good progress before his brain had shut down for twenty minutes because of all the information that it had tried to process. The stellar journey from one to four had overloaded latent synapses and caused the dormant o
rgan to spasm, leaving Flug in a comatose trance, a faraway look on his face and a thin strand of drool running from the corner of his mouth. If you’ve ever tried to order a meal at McDonald’s after nine o’clock at night from a trainee member of staff, you can appreciate the state he was in. Flug would have never got a job there. He was far too educated and erudite.
The sifting of all the advanced mathematical data complete, Flug once more joined the conscious, if ever so slightly confused world. He gazed at the moon and saw that it had shifted a bit since he had last looked up.
“Ronnie been gone a long time,” he muttered to himself. “He must be havin’ fun in dere.”
He inched forward slowly, so as to peer out from his hidey hole. The town square was dead, literally. Not a sound could be heard and there wasn’t another being in sight. The odd street light was on here and there and a couple of normal ones too, but other than that it was like being in a ghost town, which it was really, all things considered.
Flug was spooked though. He might have very well been as big as a baby dinosaur and be able to lift up a horse if one had a blow out and needed to change shoes, but when it came down to it he was, plain and simply, scared easy. In fact, he was scared of just about anything that he didn’t understand or had never seen before. Not only would he not say BOO to a goose, the goose would reduce him to tears after some furious name calling and steal his lunch money. His shadow was a constant source of terror, showing up unexpectedly and following him around and copying everything he did. He was the original big softy, one who had once spent four days hiding in a cellar because he’d heard that the circus was coming to town and they had a massive big top.
He tentatively stepped out from the recess and quickly made his way to one of the street lights. It cast a pale glow onto the square. Being bathed in the dim gleam made him feel a bit better, but it didn’t lift the strange nagging feeling that was turning his stomach over. Something in the back of his mind, and that was a long way back, was telling him that Ronnie was in trouble and should have been back to check on him by now. It would take a while for the information to reach the cognitive part of his brain, allowing him the ability to verbalise his concerns, but it was there nonetheless.
“What are you doing out at this time of night, big boy?”
If he hadn’t have been expertly tacked together, Flug would have jumped out of his skin and landed in a big wet mess on the floor.
“Feeling lonely?”
“All on your own?”
“Need some company?”
Shaking like an Essex girl doing a spelling test, Flug looked down at the three waif like forms that had appeared next to him. They were the Stella triplets, Stella ‘a’ une, Stella ‘a’ deux and Stella ‘a’ trois. They were the towns’ resident ladies of the night and prided themselves on the excellence of their service, so much so that they charged pretty much what they wanted. They were reassuringly expensive though.
Flug calmed down once he realised that he had been scared by people that he at least knew, platonically of course.
Stitches had once attempted to explain the birds and the bees to him, but it had left him in such a state that he had locked himself away in his room for the rest of the day, only emerging when Stitches promised that he’d made up the whole story and that parents collected their little ones from Mother-scare once they’d saved up enough vouchers.
“Hello, ladies,” he said. “Have you seen Ronnie? He been gone a long time.”
The girls looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Sorry, Flug love,” said Stella ‘a’ trois, “we haven’t. Where did he go?”
Flug pointed to the woods. “In dere.”
“Why would he go in there at this time of night? It’s not safe.”
Flug scratched his head with a Cumberland sausage sized finger. “Me dunno. I fink he was lookin’ for someone.”
“I know how he feels,” said Stella ‘a’ une. “I haven’t had a sniff all night.”
“Well, you did when Mrs. Skelter’s dog ran out of the café and…” said Stella ‘a’ deux.
“Yes, thank you very much. Anyway, we’re not going to get anywhere if we stand around here all night. Look after yourself, Flug. Don’t let the Bogeyman get you.”
The three ladies wandered off, leaving Flug alone once more. Only he wasn’t quite by himself. He was accompanied by the thought that Stella, whatever number she was, had left implanted in his head. BOGEYMAN. Therefore Flug, being Flug, re-entered his obligatory state of panic and ran as fast as he could back to the sanctuary of the office, the one place that he knew was safe.
He needn’t have worried though. Nosey the Bogeyman had left for his annual holiday two days previously. He was on a fortnight’s bender in Ibiza, and judging by the state that he usually arrived home in, there wouldn’t be any bogeying going on in Skullenia for quite some time.
* * *
The beast padded silently through the trees, its eyes darting in all directions, ears alert to the slightest sound. Its long, moist tongue licked lips that were pulled back over teeth that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Jurassic Park.
All of a sudden the wolf froze, neither a muscle moving nor a fibre twitching. About ten feet ahead, the dense wood gave way to a small clearing, and it was from this oasis that the noise had come. To the creature’s senses it was heightened to a loud and distinctive cacophony, but it wasn’t reminiscent of any woodland noise and the wolf was one hundred percent familiar with every sight and sound of the forest. The wolf flared its nostrils and tried to pick up any scent that might be floating on the night air. It only took a microsecond before it registered. Sweat, smoke, artificial fibres and, most importantly, the acrid pungent stench of fear. The wolf prowled on and prepared to attack.
* * *
Ronnie was just on the edge of the trees, more or less directly opposite and completely oblivious to the existence of the wolf that was poised to strike. Even if he had have been aware of it he wouldn’t have been able to see it, because his view was obscured by the four soldiers, who were having an ad hoc briefing right in the centre of the treeless glade. Try as he might, he still couldn’t fathom the reason for their presence. The only people dopey enough to enter these woods besides the A-Team before him and nosey detectives were clueless tourists, arty writers and occasionally, well, once, a television crew. Tourists would meander along the forest paths, taking too many photos and making too much noise, writers would explore for either research or use it as somewhere to ‘get away from it all and find myself’ and, for some inexplicable reason, the television crew filmed a cookery show. On the whole though, visitors were pretty rare. They would usually get to the point of entering the wood or sightseeing in the town, and they would invariably hear stories from some of the locals. “Don’t go into the woods, dangerous they be, full of vile creatures, spectres, evil doings and hobgoblins with little pointy sticks. Wooooooh”.
Still, the vile creatures, spectres etc. weren’t silly. Picking off the odd (very odd) local from time to time was okay. It was an accepted part of a culture amongst which such beings existed. You couldn’t live on the African Savannah without being chased by a lion every now and then, could you? It was just a part of everyday life that people acknowledged had to happen occasionally, no matter how distasteful other people may find it. Kind of like Strictly Come Dancing.
Consequently, the woodland evil was forced to use a little discretion when it came to feeding, and splattering a celebrity chef’s internal organs all over the forest floor would have been a bit over the top, although many folk would have seen it as a credible exception and service to mankind in general. If nothing else, it would be a start.
Ronnie was on the point of giving up and going home. He was no closer to getting to the bottom of this, and the protracted length of time that he had been invisible was taking a toll on his system and making him tired. It wasn’t easy keeping every molecule of your body in a constant state of flux, and there w
as always the ever present danger that he could suddenly become a bit faint, lose concentration and become visible again. Not very good if you were on covert ops, a stakeout or hiding behind a curtain in the shower room after hockey practice at the Skullenian School for Developing Young Ladies. And don’t get the impression that Ronnie was a bit of a perv, who used his physical gift purely to satisfy his own base needs. He quite often, um… well, sometimes… uh, no, he actually didn’t put it to any good use whatsoever. What a perv.
He made a move to go when something caught his eye. He initially thought it was the soldiers, but the flicker of a leaf on the other side of the clearing started alarm bells ringing. A branch moved forward and down, as if some weight were slowly bearing down upon it, and the faint sound of fresh wood splintering could be heard. It was then that the moonlight reflected off something dark and shiny. Another couple of seconds and a pair of large oval rubies appeared out of the darkness beyond. They glinted in the lunar glow, unwavering.
“Oh my God,” Ronnie muttered to himself as realisation crashed over him like a tidal wave. “Whatever those guys are hunting isn’t playing by the rules.”
He watched in rapt fascination as the soldiers continued their discussion in blissful ignorance of the perilous situation that they were now in. By now, a foot-long muzzle was protruding from the trees, and a vague wisp of breath condensed into the cold night air. Werewolf. It was unmistakable now. The sheer size of the head alone was enough to freeze Ronnie to the spot and render him completely speechless. He obviously knew they existed and had heard various tales of them, but he had never seen one in the flesh. Any thoughts of warning the poor unfortunate souls ahead were beaten back by fear and an instinctive sense of self-preservation. Jack booted and great coated, Ronnie’s brain ordered him to be still and silent. Transfixed, he watched as the monstrous creature burst forth from the undergrowth with a roar that would have sent a pride of lions to an early grave. Two of the soldiers dropped to the ground instantly, whether with shock or training Ronnie couldn’t be sure, but for now they were out of the fight for survival. The remaining two reacted quickly, obviously veterans and acutely aware of the position they found themselves in. They split to opposite sides of the clearing, giving the wolf two possible targets, and reducing the chances of them both being taken down in one attack. All of this happened in a split second, but to Ronnie it seemed as if time had slowed, like the ensuing battle was taking place underwater. He could see that the wolf was making a choice of which quarry to attack first, assessing the threat and where any danger to itself was likely to come from. Its eyes darted from one to the other and in an instant, it chose. The wild side of its psyche would have seen the wolf go into battle without a second thought in a fury of fangs, fur and ferocity, but it’s deeply buried human consciousness had made it tactically aware and able to make a choice based on risk and the likely success of the hunt. It chose the soldier to Ronnie’s right, the one that had been giving the orders. Clever thinking to take out the leader first. With a speed born of supernatural strength, the beast was on him. Jaws like a steel trap clamped onto the man’s head and tightened like a vice. Razor sharp teeth punctured flesh and bone, shattering the skull, sending blood and body fluids in all directions. The soldier’s decapitated corpse hit the deck with a wet thud as the wolf turned its attention to its second target. Thinking he would have had more time, the soldier had only just manoeuvred himself to a position just in front of where Ronnie was hiding. As he attempted to ready and deploy his weapon the wolf pounced, barely giving him time to raise his gun. The monster slashed at him with a giant talon tipped paw, smashing the semi-automatic rifle in half. Vicious claws slashed into the soldier’s torso just below the left armpit and, in one raking movement, ripped through muscle and sinew, exposing bone and internal organs. A second ravaged carcass fell to the forest floor.