“Jen?” he said, his voice now audibly quaking. He had to outweigh her by a good 80 pounds, and for her to throw him off like she had sent his mind spinning into confusion. What had just happened could not have physically happened. “Jen, wait!”
But she no longer heard him. She dropped off the bed into a predator’s crouch, facing him. Her raven hair was a wild mane and her eyes narrowed even more as she began to measure him up, as a lioness would stalk her prey.
Drew Jackson had never been so scared in his life. Something about the woman was way off, almost alien, and he did the only thing he could think of. Forgetting the fact that he had a gun, he turned and ran, slamming his way through the house and out the front door, his bare feet slapping on the concrete driveway. He threw himself into the front seat of his car and, moments later, was smoking his tires as he roared down the street.
Had he not turned to run so quickly, he might have saved himself a lot of trouble. Even as he was charging out of the house, Jen Sherrard was collapsing on the floor of her bedroom, pulling herself into a shivering and feverish ball as the strange power that had gripped her disappeared.
Instead, Drew was thanking his lucky stars that he had escaped with his life. He had never seen anyone act like she had and he couldn’t help but wonder what it meant. Was she experiencing the same malady that had taken hold of her husband? If so, that presented a whole new plate of possibilities and he began looking for ways to turn it to his advantage.
And then, several miles down the road, Jackson remembered something and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.
He had left his shoes in Jen’s bedroom.
He was well and truly screwed now and he knew it. Unless, of course, he went back and took care of it. Unless he silenced her before she could talk. It only took him a few minutes of arguing with himself before he knew what he had to do.
Jen Sherrard had to die.
Chapter 30
Sherrard Residence, Helena, Montana: From the darkness, Perry Edwards watched his former boss, Drew Jackson, rush from the front door of the Sherrard house and speed away in his car, leaving the acrid smell of burnt rubber heavy in the air. He wasn’t sure what the stranger occurrence was – seeing Jackson running out the front door like a bat out of hell or he, himself, being there in the shadows, watching it happen. He did know that he still had a score to settle with his former boss, but that would have to wait. Eventually, Drew would come to him anyway. Perry had made certain of that.
He still wasn’t certain why he had come to the Sherrard house, unless it was to subconsciously close that chapter in his former life. Jon Sherrard had been his friend for a long time. Then came that awful night at the Christmas party. He knew it had taken Jen a long time to forgive Jon, and she’d almost divorced him because of it. He, on the other hand, had never really forgiven either of them. He had acted like it was no big deal, but he had never gotten over the betrayal from his best friend and, even more acutely, that of his wife. And killing Bethany as his first act, while in Jon Sherrard’s body, had been pure karma, as far as he was concerned. It saved him from taking her to Switzerland and pushing her off a mountain like he had originally intended.
Now, here he was at Jon’s house, wondering what Jen Sherrard was doing inside. He had Jon’s body. Maybe getting some action with Jen was what was driving him to be here. He was fully healed and completely in control…at least he thought he was. Pushing aside any lingering doubts, he stepped out of the bushes and walked toward the front door. He mounted the steps and paused, looking at the opened door. Drew had been in a hurry to leave and hadn’t closed it. He almost rang the doorbell before he realized who he was. Grinning in spite of himself, he stepped into the house and shut the door behind him.
“Jen?” he called out, looking around. Because of their past friendship, he had been in the Sherrards’ house a number of times, so he knew his way around. It was late, so the back bedroom was his likely destination and he caught himself wondering again what Drew had been doing here. Had his former boss been thinking the same thing and come to have a little fun with Jen? She wouldn’t even consider that, would she? Not with the issues that were going on with Jon. And interestingly enough, here he was. Jon Sherrard had come home. The irony was not lost on him.
Tightening his resolve, he walked down the hall toward the bedroom. The door was open and, in the light of the hall, he could see a form lying huddled on the floor, just inside the room. Forgetting, for a moment, what he was there for, he hurried forward and knelt down beside her. Jen Sherrard was shivering uncontrollably, sweat pouring off her body.
“Jen!” he said in alarm and then caught himself. He was worried. Why was he feeling anxiety? It was not like Jen was his wife. But she was, wasn’t she?
With sudden clarity, Perry straightened and stumbled backward as he realized what was happening. “No!” he growled, turning his mind inward.
Recognizing that his stealthy approach had been detected, Jon Sherrard’s consciousness launched an all-out mental attack on Perry. This is my body! Sherrard practically screamed in his mind.
“No!” Edwards snarled, vocalizing as he stumbled against the door frame and pressed his fists to his temples as if he could squeeze Jon out of his head. “I own you!”
You betrayed me!
“You betrayed me first!” Perry Edwards screamed his hatred and frustration, fighting against the silent voice in his head. “You and Bethany! You did it!”
Get…out of…my body!
“No! I own you! This body is mine now! It’s mine, Jon!”
He suddenly and inexplicably laced himself with a hard right across his jaw. Stars exploded behind his eyes and he fell back into the hall, oddly wondering at the fact that you could hit yourself hard enough to nearly knock yourself out.
“Jon?” Jen called out weakly as she raised her head from the floor. The ruckus had broken through her fog. Not only that, Dakota had begun a frantic barking from outside as he ran the length of the house, trying to get inside. The big wolf knew something was wrong and that Jen was in danger.
Perry Edwards shook his head, trying to clear the stars as he continued to fight Jon’s consciousness. The blow to the jaw had been directed by Jon, but Jon had suffered the effects, too, possibly more so than Perry. Edwards felt Jon’s control slip and he quickly turned his thoughts inward, looking to quell the uprising.
“Jon, what’s…happening?” Jen called out again, trying to pull herself up onto her hands and knees. “I feel so…strange. Help…me.”
Perry looked at her, ignoring her condition. He was much more interested in what he wanted to do to her. It would be poetic justice, to be certain, and that thought helped him drive Jon’s groggy consciousness back into the recesses of his brain. “It’s alright, baby,” he said, shaking his head and steadying himself. He was back in control.
“Jon, I’m so…tired,” she went on as he stumbled over to her and pulled her to her feet.
He swept his arms underneath her and picked her up, gently laying her on the bed. Outside, the deep barks of Dakota sounded louder and more urgent. Perry ignored them and adjusted Jen in bed, pulling the sheet back up to cover her bare legs. Then he thought better of it and pulled them back down, stripping them from the bed. Jen was in and out of consciousness, and if she was aware of Perry getting into bed with her, she showed no signs.
The hunger began to rise up within him and Perry felt the intelligence within quickly coming to life. He had intended on repaying Jon’s past sins by having sex with his wife, but the Horde had decided to use Jen in a different way. The feeding filaments began to come free of their sheaths all over his body and, as hard as he tried to will them back into dormancy, he had no effect. He was fully conscious of what was happening, but the Horde had taken full control of Jon’s body.
He watched in detached fascination as the filaments began probing her stomach and face, preparing to penetrate her body and begin absorbing her. They were pushing into her soft flesh when
the sudden sound of breaking glass filled the room.
Dakota hit the floor and in one bound, was on top of the bed, snarling and snapping even as the glass from the shattered window spun through the air. The big wolf never hesitated, his jaws clamping on Perry’s arm as it crashed into him. Man and wolf went flying off the bed, a mixture of snarls and shouts filling the house.
Dakota meant to kill the intruder and Perry knew it. He also knew that he was much more than just a man now and anything the wolf did to him, he would be able to repair. The intellect that was the Horde quickly withdrew back into whatever dark hiding place it existed within, giving complete control of Jon’s body back to Perry to deal with the threat. Perry quickly fought back, knowing he was going to have to kill the wolf.
Their momentum had carried them out into the hall and Dakota quickly maneuvered himself so that he was between Perry and Jen. Perry dropped to a crouch himself, ignoring the torn flesh of his arm. The feeding tendrils whipped about him in readiness as he calculated his attack. He flipped one of the extensions forward and predictably, Dakota’s jaws snapped closed on it, severing the end of it. Oddly, Perry felt no pain and quickly and efficiently wrapped two more around the wolf’s thick neck, dragging him off his feet. Dakota snapped again, but Perry sent the rest of the alien appendages, catching the wolf around the legs. He succeeded in getting one around the canine’s jaws, tightening them shut.
Just like that, the fight was over. Perry straightened and looked down in contempt at the incapacitated wolf, bound tightly in the coils of his feeding tendrils. Several more waved menacingly in the air and Perry wasted no time in putting them to work. Dakota whimpered softly as the alien extensions pushed their way inside his body and began liquefying and absorbing his organs. As the wolf shivered before him, Perry watched dispassionately as the animal breathed its last. It was an odd feeling, seeing the big animal dead at his hands. He’d liked Dakota and, on his visits to Jon’s house, he and the wolf had played a lot of games of tug-of-war with a long piece of thick rope. But now the wolf was dead at his feet and he felt no remorse about what he had done; it had simply been a necessity of survival.
Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten about his original intended victim.
Jen Sherrard’s scream of rage was ungodly in its similarity to the snarl of the wolf, and Perry looked up just in time to see the woman launch herself from the bed. She hit him with enough force to send him flying down the hall, the feeding filaments ripping free from the wolf’s body and flailing through the air. In shock and somewhat dazed, he rolled back to his feet, the alien parts of him quickly withdrawing back into his stolen body. Looking down, he was puzzled to see four long slashes in his torso, angling from his left shoulder to his right hip. Blood poured from the wounds and, in several places along his gut, his insides were pushing against the shredded stomach wall, threatening to spill out onto the floor.
Looking up in shock, Perry saw the reason. Jen Sherrard crouched over the body of her beloved pet, glaring at him with open hatred. But she was not wholly Jen Sherrard anymore. Her eyes glowed green and her face had taken on a distinctly canine shape, elongating into a snout filled with the teeth of a wolf. Her hands were held out threateningly before her, her fingers lengthened into long, curved, razor-sharp claws. Blood dripped from the claws on her right hand. His blood.
Perry had only a moment to wonder at what he was seeing when a gunshot rang out behind him and the bullet blasted into his back and out through his chest, driving the breath from his lungs. A second shot plowed a very similar path through him. Suddenly, he was moving. He knew he was hurt badly and couldn’t handle much more damage before he would be in danger of not being able to heal. Without thinking, without even looking at his new attacker, he turned and shouldered his way through a door next to him. It opened into another room and desperate to escape, Perry dove through the window and into the night.
Behind him, Drew Jackson appeared in the doorway and squeezed off several more shots through the shattered window. Whether he hit his target or not, Drew didn’t care. He knew he had wounded Perry badly enough to send him underground for a while. Hopefully, by the time he healed, Drew would be long gone.
He turned his attention back to the scene before him. Dakota lay dead in the doorway to the room. That rather pleased him. Jen Sherrard—at least he thought it was Jen—was crouched over the body of the wolf, her green eyes locked on him. She seemed to be caught between the shape of a human and an animal, with her head and hands leaning more toward that of the wolf.
Drew Jackson didn’t bother wondering what was going on with her. He had seen enough weirdness over the past day to know that he was done asking questions. “Hello, Jen,” he said coldly, raising his gun.
He shot her through the heart.
Chapter 31
Sherrard Residence, Helena, Montana: Drew Jackson sat on the edge of the couch, his head lowered as a paramedic continued pumping up the blood pressure cuff around his left bicep. The house was a hive of activity as government officials continued with their work of buttoning up the incident and scouring the grounds for anything that might have been missed the first two times they went over it.
After he had shot Jen, Drew had waited around as much to ensure that she had indeed died as to make sure that if Perry returned, he could put him down for good, too. It would have made his story pretty much airtight. But Perry never returned and his own strange condition had begun to worsen, bringing on a headache and chilled sweats that had him wondering what was going on inside him. He had finally collapsed on the couch and made his phone call, calling Alders directly.
The federal agent had shown up with the two military people who had been working with him and, after a cursory examination, had called paramedics in. Alders had then ordered a full government quarantine team to come in and deal with the rest.
“How’s he doing?” Alder’s voice, cutting through the fog in Drew’s brain, was aimed at the medical techs who were working on him.
“Elevated pulse and body temp,” one of the men replied, his voice flat and emotionless as if he was reading off a card. “Definitely fighting some kind of infection.”
“Mister Jackson, are you in there?” Alders asked, leaning closer.
Jackson waved a hand weakly in the air and looked up. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said softly. “Just tired.”
“Anything more you can tell us about what happened?” Alders pressed, watching the man’s reaction. He had already questioned him in-depth and Jackson had willingly shared his story, even though his mind seemed to wander at times. The FutureTek CEO had seemed sincere, but Alders had been in the game too long not to recognize when he wasn’t being told the truth.
“I already told you,” Jackson mumbled. “I came here to spell Kat and must have dozed off. Next thing I know, I heard them fighting in the hall. I put a bullet in Jon and he went through the window.”
“But why did you kill Jen?”
“You saw her!” Jackson snapped, color coming back to his cheeks as anger flooded him. “She looked like that wolf pet of hers, and she came after me! I had no choice.”
“Just relax, Mister Jackson,” Alders said calmly. “I’m just making sure I have all the facts.”
“Agent Alders,” Major Bolson called from the other side of the room where he had been deep in conversation with his female military companion. “Can I see you for a moment?”
Alders cast another look at Jackson and then joined the two military personnel. “What did you find?”
“Nothing pertinent at the moment, but we have two major concerns,” Martz said, casting a glance back in Jackson’s direction as the man lowered his head again, seemingly exhausted.
Alders followed her gaze. “He’s infected, isn’t he.” It was a statement. He knew what he was seeing.
Martz’s look was unreadable. “I don’t know if ‘infected’ is the right word, but I think it would be best that he be admitted to the hospital for observation.”
&
nbsp; “Shouldn’t we get him into quarantine?”
“Too much publicity,” Bolson stated quietly, shaking his head. “And he would fight it. Last thing we need right now is someone making a stink and with his position in the company, he might be able to bend a few ears. We can’t afford that right now. We’re doing all we can to keep the lid on things as it is.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Make it seem like his choice,” the major replied. “Suggest he check himself into a hospital until we can ascertain what is bothering him. It wouldn’t hurt to let him know there might be a connection between how he’s feeling now and the wounds he suffered yesterday.”
“That might make him docile enough that he doesn’t question it,” Martz added. “As long as we can keep him out of the public eye and our own eyes on him, all the better.”
“Okay,” Alders agreed. “What’s your other concern?”
Bolson looked at Martz questioningly, before answering. “We’re very concerned about the connection that Jen Sherrard has in all of this.”
“She’s dead,” Alders pointed out. “She’s been tagged and bagged already. Your crew didn’t waste any time.”
“True,” Bolson began. “We have a mobile lab that arrived in the area last night, per orders from our superior. Her body has been transported there for examination, but…”
Alders quickly raised a hand, silencing him. “You’re hiding something from me,” he accused, his voice tight as his eyes bored holes into the man. “Probably not the smartest decision you’ve made in all this.”
“With all due respect, I’m not hiding anything from you,” Bolson countered. “It’s just that there is so much more here that we don’t know, and it’s imperative that we find out everything we can.”
“What does that have to do with Jen Sherrard?”
“Quite frankly, we need to know what happened to her,” Martz cut in, backing up her partner. “What caused her transformation, and why is it so much different than what is going on with Jon Sherrard? Drew Jackson has witnessed Sherrard’s transformation twice now and he’s the only one alive that has. But his statements completely contradict what we saw with Miss Sherrard.”
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