Shapeshifter: 1

by J. F. Gonzalez

  They had stayed up to well past one o'clock and when they'd turned in his mother had actually kissed him good night. "Maybe tomorrow we can do some sledding or something," his father had said.

  Mark had nodded, still flushed with good vibes from the past few weeks. "Yeah. That sounds great."

  They had gone to their rooms, and Mark had been elated as he'd changed into nightclothes and gotten into bed. He was so excited it had taken him an hour to fall asleep.

  What had awakened him was the smell of gunpowder. It was coming from his parents' bedroom and he had opened his eyes, startled. Then he'd heard his mother's whispered voice: ". . . I think we've made a mistake, Hank. He's our son, he's not some-"

  "Can it, Loretta," his father hissed in a whisper. "The kid's a fucking monster." Then came the sound of a cartridge being inserted into the chamber of a gun. "You know it and I know it. Just because we were fucking drunks this time last year doesn't mean we were hallucinating what we saw. You saw him that night as well as I did."

  Mark had gotten up and crossed the room, his heart pounding. They had seen him! He didn't know how, but somehow his parents must have seen him one night coming back after he had changed, maybe even after he had-

  "But Hank!" His mother's voice, louder.

  The door to his parents' room had opened and Mark paused, hiding behind the doorway to his own room, already feeling the change taking place, fueled by his fear and his growing anger that they had led him up here for the singular purpose of killing him, their only son. They had raised him in a volatile environment, had beaten him time and time again, had neglected him, and they were still turning their backs on him in his time of need. Some fucking parents they were.

  "Hank!" His mother wailed as his father opened the door and stepped into the room.

  Blinded by his wolf-nature, Mark sprung.

  The nightmare bled deep red.

  When Carol Emrich returned from work Mark Wiseman was gone.

  "Goddamn him," Carol muttered, shutting and locking the door behind her. She crossed the room and threw her purse on the table by the nightstand. She shrugged out of her coat and sat down on a chair to take off her boots. It was a quarter till ten. The minute a customer named Grant Forest had found out that Mark wasn't working tonight, he'd begun doing his best to put on what charm he had. The guy actually had gone out on a limb and not only asked her out, but he had grabbed her ass as she'd walked by him with a pot of coffee. It had taken all her willpower to resist dumping the pot's contents into his face. Instead she had smiled sweetly at him and told him that if he ever tried that again she would rip his arm off and stuff it up his ass.

  Thanks to his country-hickness, the buttwad had complained to her boss, who had pulled her aside in his office and told her that "as a waitress you are not to insult or threaten my customers in any way. You do that again, and I'm firing your ass."

  It had taken all her might to hold her tongue and the way he had told her this-in a condescending tone of voice-seemed to set the stage for the rest of the evening. For some reason the patrons that came to Jake's Diner that night were unusually demanding"Can I have more ketchup?" "Can you send this back to the grill and have him do it a little more well done?" "I ordered the steak fries, not the onion rings"-and she began to feel that she was being treated as a slave. From Mark's insistence that they hide out from all of humanity by staying in this bugfuck little town, to his clamming up and not talking to her when she explicitly told him that they needed to talk, to being pushed around at the diner, Carol felt that she was being taken advantage of. She was beginning to feel the way she'd felt when she was with Bernard. It was a feeling she had grown to hate and as the night wore on she told herself that she wasn't going to let it go on any longer. Tonight it ended.

  Therefore she was extremely pissed when she arrived back at the motel and saw that Mark was gone. She changed out of her waitress uniform into a pair of sweat pants and a sweater, then pulled on a pair of thick socks. Her anger smoldered. Asshole probably went to the bar down the street. I hope he gets his skinny little ass kicked by the local rednecks.

  Carol turned the TV on and reclined on the bed, mindlessly watching the news, then switching over to a sitcom. She briefly debated on changing into jeans and a sweater and braving the cold and heading over to Jason's Pool Hall and Roadhouse, but decided against it. She needed a drink, but putting up with drunk assholes she didn't want, or need.

  So she sat in the room and let her anger smolder to a simmer. By the time eleven-thirty rolled around, so did her fatigue from the day. Mark would be back soon enough; last week he had gone to Jason's for a few rounds of pool and a couple of beers and there had been no trouble. Perhaps tonight had been more of the same; maybe he just needed to break the monotony of staying at the motel room whenever they had a night off. Carol surely understood that; she had been wanting to break the monotony the minute they had checked in to the Star Motor Lodge.

  When Carol finally succumbed to sleep she did so quietly. She turned the TV off with the remote control, placed it on the nightstand and turned off the bedside light. She was asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

  Outside the moon was full, bloated and white. It shone like a beacon through sparse clouds.

  In the dream he was roaming, a wolf in the night.

  He ran through the thick copse of woods, weaving in and out of streams and thickets of brush. In the deep Missouri winter he felt warm and snug in his winter coat. His clawed feet padded along the wellpacked snow, his nose picking out a million scents in the air. He steered clear of the scattered farm houses; the animals that resided on the farms all sensed him and they all took up bleats of fear. Better not to alert farmers that a wayward wolf was on the prowl.

  He had stuck far enough away from farms, but deep enough in the woods to avoid detection. He wouldn't be able to for long. His hunger was strong and it propelled him closer to the outer periphery of the woods. Toward the edge of civilization.

  He headed toward lights at the edge of the woods. The smells and sounds coming from them told him all he needed to know. He was near a bar, probably the one outside of town. The bar was packed with a drunk, rowdy crowd.

  One lone man was exiting the bar, staggering toward his car.

  Mark's nostrils flared with the scent of him. His stomach churned. He stepped slightly out of the trees and gestured, trying to get the man's attention. He did.

  The man looked up and squinted. He took a shuffling step closer. "Hey, Bobby, that you, man?"

  Mark stepped back into the shadows.

  The man stumbled closer. "Hey, Travis, we were wonderin' what happened to ya. I mean, I know you got sick and all, but Bob ain't that mad at ya for throwin' up on his new boots."

  The man stumbled closer, stepping past his car and into the woods. He was in his mid-twenties and would have been slim were it not for the beer fat that had settled into his stomach and jowls. He had a thick beard and wavy brown hair that fell around his ears. He was dressed in blue jeans, a blue flannel shirt, and a heavy leather jacket and black work boots. He stumbled into the woods, squinting. "Ya don't have to be fuckin' embarrassed, Travis. I mean, Christ, man-"

  Mark sprang at the man. His teeth sank into his neck as he drove him down to the ground. As the taste of hot blood spurted into his mouth he lost all control and lost himself in his hunger-

  Mark started awake, his breathing heavy. He blinked; he was in their motel room, back at the Star Motor Lodge and it was still night outside.

  Mark turned in bed. Carol slept soundly beside him.

  Christ, that was a bad one, Mark thought, rubbing his hand over his sleep-tangled hair. Worst fucking nightmare I've ever had.

  His mind spun with the suddenness of being woken suddenly. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat down, rubbing his face with his hands. They came away sticky.

  He looked at his hands. They were stained with something sticky and dark.

  Then he tasted it i
n his mouth. He ran his tongue along his teeth and gums and the salty taste of blood came to him. His stomach roiled. It wasn't a dream. It had happened and it had happened so suddenly and was so strong that he hadn't even been aware of it.

  Mark felt his chest hitch with a sob of frustration and he fought it down. He turned to Carol's sleeping form in bed. How long had he been in bed with her? Did she even know that he had come back with blood on his hands?

  Who did I kill tonight?

  He tried to remember as much of the dream as he could, tried to trace his doings over the last eight hours as the darkness slowly gave way to the light of morning.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  "I hope you're right about this," Agent Strong said. He buckled his seatbelt as the private plane they had chartered in Orange County taxied for landing at the small Columbia, Missouri airport.

  "Trust me on this," Allen Frey said. He reached for his carry-on bag. He hadn't packed much, just a change of clothes and a toothbrush. The minute he had heard the news from Frederick Johansen, he had called Agent Strong and told them that they would find Mark Wiseman and Carol Emrich in Florence, Missouri.

  "You still haven't explained what this is all about," Agent Strong said, looking out the window as they approached the runway.

  "The description of Samuels's killer that I got in Texas fits Mark Wiseman," Allen said. "Judging from the reports we got out of Missouri today, the young man killed yesterday is an exact match."

  "An exact match of what?"

  "An exact match of modus operandi. He was killed by the same person."

  "By Mark Wiseman, you mean?"

  Allen nodded. He didn't want to go into it further. He was surprised the agent had gone this far. On a hunch he had monitored all police activity in the country, or as much as he could with only a four person staff. He had been rewarded this morning with a report out of Florence, Missouri that a man exiting a roadhouse had been attacked and mauled by a wolf. Allen had placed a call himself to the Missouri Highway Patrol where he learned that the attack had been a surprise. "We don't get wolves this far south," the man he had talked to said. "I've heard about them coming down as far south as, oh, Moberly, but never this far down. And even then they normally don't venture this far into civilization. This one must have been mighty hungry."

  Allen had learned two very important things from his conversation: one, they were treating the death of Travis Peary as an animal attack, and two, the media hadn't caught wind of it yet. "We'd rather keep it that way," the patrolman told him. "Don't want everybody up in arms about a goddamn wolf. We got the Missouri Department of Fish and Game tracking the critter now."

  That gave Allen a window of opportunity. He had placed a call to Agent Strong and told him that he had evidence that Mark Wiseman and Carol Emrich were somewhere near Florence, Missouri. Agent Strong hadn't even asked how he knew this, or why he thought the two could be found there. He had simply arranged to meet Allen at John Wayne Airport.

  The only thing Frey had told Agent Strong on the flight was that he had gotten his information from a source of his in the area. He had done some investigating and found out about the murder of Travis Peary this morning, and was able to connect it with the three deaths they were working on. And that was when things began unraveling.

  "Those two dipshits you interviewed in Texas were loaded to the gills on dope," Agent Strong said. "I read a transcript of their interview myself. Worthless fucks claim that what killed Samuels was a werewolf."

  "I'm sure in the dark Mark appeared to be a werewolf to them," Allen explained, hoping to satisfy the agent. "But the man they saw fit Mark's description exactly. It also fit the description George Fielding gave us."

  "That's another thing I'm having trouble with." Agent Strong looked at Allen from across the aisle. The plane was now beginning its descent and they could hear the whine of the engine. "Fielding said this Mark Wiseman guy looked like some kind of half-human, half-monster thing. Said he had claws and long sharp teeth. What kind of shit is that?"

  "That's what I hope to find out," Allen said. "And that's why I think that if we talk to some people in town, show them some pictures of Mark and Carol, and if we find out they're in town we may get some answers."

  Agent Strong regarded Allen for a minute. "We'd better," he said, settling into his seat for the landing.

  Allen Frey sat back in his seat, trying to suppress the shit-eating grin that was trying to worm its way across his features. He felt somewhat vindicated that Agent Strong was trusting his investigation and his instinct. He just hoped that his suspicions paid off. If they didn't he might not get a second chance.

  When the telephone rang in Bernard Roberts's private office at home he picked it up on the first ring. "Yeah?"

  He listened carefully, his features dark and serious. "You're sure?" He listened some more, then picked up a pen and dragged a pad of paper toward him. He began writing on the pad. "Where the fuck is Florence, Missouri?" He listened some more, nodding. He jotted down some more notes, then began to grin. "This sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks Brian." He hung up.

  He tore the scrap of paper off the pad and looked at it, leaning back in his chair. The private investigator he had hired eight months ago to perform the background check on Mark Wiseman had been instructed to keep a watch out for any unusual deaths in which a wild animal was the suspected culprit. "It doesn't matter," he had told Brian Keith last month. "Dogs, wolves, mountain lions, bears, alligators, whatever, as long as they're chewed up pretty bad, that's fine. I would like to find out within twentyfour hours of the attack and where it happened."

  He had sent Brian off to work and for the next month had sat at home and followed all reports Brian gave him. He'd also followed all reports another private investigator was giving him; this investigator was working at trying to trace Mark Wiseman's and Carol Emrich's steps after they had ambushed him and almost tried to kill him in that fleabag motel in Three Rivers. The trail had started off hot: Apparently Mark had stolen a car not far from the Three Rivers Lodge and it was dumped later at a truck stop in Arizona. A motel clerk at the truck stop recalled seeing a couple who matched their description, and a waitress at the diner the motel was connected to said she had served them breakfast one morning. A mechanic at the truck stop thought he saw a couple fitting their description climbing into the cab of an eighteen-wheel tractortrailer, but he didn't remember what the trucker who gave them a ride looked like, or what state his rig was from. Smart move on their part; they could be anywhere.

  Therefore he'd put Brian Keith to work monitoring all cases of animal attacks on humans. It would take another month or so until the next full moon, and once that happened that would be the giveaway. Mark Wiseman might have grown to loathe killing for Bernard, but forcing him to do his bidding had no doubt awakened the beast within him. He wouldn't be able to contain it the way he had in the past.

  Bernard picked up the phone and dialed his travel agency. He asked for Marci and was put through almost immediately. "Marci, Bernard here. Listen, I was wondering if you could help me charter a flight from John Wayne Airport to Florence, Missouri, or a nearby hub." He listened as Marci consulted the computer. "Fine, Columbia will do. How far is it from Florence? Really? Great. Why don't you get me a car at the airport, as well. Yes, that's fine, thanks."

  He gave Marci his American Express number, thanked her for her time and help, and hung up. Marci had booked him a flight on a private plane that could leave in four hours. Bernard rose from his desk and headed upstairs to pack.

  There had been no hollow ringing sound over the phone lines during both calls, so he knew his lines weren't bugged. But, he was fairly confident that he was being tailed. That FBI guy, Agent Strong or whatever his name was, had told him that he was going to get him, that he was going to do whatever it took to build the evidence he needed to haul him back into custody. Bernard had politely told him to get stuffed. Then, after making the ten thousand dollars bail on the v
andalism and suspected attempted assault charge in Three Rivers, he had gone straight to the office and began packing it up. There weren't many personal effects at the office, just a few photos framed and matted on the walls and his Rolodex. By the time he was finished two security guards were at his door along with Hank Owen, one of the senior board members. Hank had looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Bernard, but-"

  "It's okay," Bernard had said, shouldering his way past him. "I'm going."

  "It will only be temporary," Hank had said. "You know we have to do this, that we have to relieve you of your duties until a complete investigation is done. I hope that you-"

  "Hank, it's all right." Bernard had turned to Hank and smiled, patting the older man's shoulder. He always had the impression that Hank saw him as a son; Hank had once sat on this same presidency seat when he was Bernard's age. "I intend to cooperate fully with the members of the board and law enforcement. We'll straighten this out, I promise you that."

  Hank had been silent, looking at Bernard as if he didn't know him anymore. Bernard thought he detected a note of disappointment in those eyes. "I hope so, Bernard. I really hope so."

  The minute he'd gotten home he'd placed a call to his lawyer, Jim Weinstein in Costa Mesa. He'd gotten Jim on the phone and explained the entire situation to him: The board had suspected Bernard of embezzling funds and had let him go pending an investigation, the FBI was investigating and it was a big fucking mess. Jim had questioned him, wanted to know the how's, why's and where's. Bernard had told him that somebody was out to frame him; he didn't know who, but he thought it might be one of the board members who was for the merger. Furthermore, he was certain whoever this board member was had somehow arranged for his three colleagues to be murdered, and a fourth to be almost murdered just recently in Las Vegas. And still furthermore, he was positive that this certain unknown board member had not only covered his or her tracks, but that they had successfully made it seem that it was Bernard that had ordered the hits and done the embezzling. "I have airtight alibis on the nights those men were murdered," he'd said. "They can go through my phone records if they want, they can check my database at home. Of course, I'd rather have you advise me on that, and-"