The Wolves Among Us

by Shawn Winstone

“Isn’t it enough that a woman wants you?”

  Usually, it was. This time, he wanted to know. “Tell me why.”

  “This killer. He took…he took my fiancé from me. I don’t have him anymore. I need a man, sometimes, to remind me what it felt like. I need you. Now, shut up and take me to the bed!”

  It was hours later when they fell asleep, naked and sweaty and silent. The woman didn’t even talk during sex.

  Well. This was completely unexpected he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep, listening to her purr softly on his chest.

  Chapter Three

  Calico woke up in the morning in the bathtub.

  He tried to remember the rest of last night, but it was kind of a blur. Bridgett’s hands had started doing interesting things to him at one point and he had let her use him again, even though he was only half awake. Maybe that’s when he’d come in here, to clean up, and then just fallen asleep?

  Maybe. Although, considering his history with blackouts…

  No, he told himself. He hadn’t had anything to drink last night. Or eat, really. Those couple bites of bagel wouldn’t hold him long. Was it really morning? Well. He should be hungrier than he felt but he still wanted breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. No, steak. Mmm. Steak.

  “Hey, Bridgett?” he called out to her, looking himself over in the mirror and seeing a face that seriously needed a shave. There was a glow in his eyes, though. Bridgett might not be much of a talker, but she sure knew how to use her body.

  Walking out of the bathroom, naked and proud of it, he found the room was empty. “Bridgett?” She wasn’t here. Well. She must have decided to go back to her room sometime after…they’d finished. When he was sleeping in the bathtub.

  Heh. He certainly hadn’t expected to hook up with his partner on this case. Well. It had happened. They’d just have to put it behind them and keep working. If Bridgett was right about the motive, in this case, they were looking for a vigilante. Somebody who was evening up scores where the justice system had failed. So, the perp must have access to those kinds of criminal records.

  Or the guy watched the news online, he thought sourly. The information age had widened the pool of suspects for every case immensely.

  While he dug out fresh clothes for himself from his suitcase, Calico turned on the beat up flatscreen TV and turned it to a local station. It was just eight o’clock, his watch told him. Just in time for the news.

  “Repeating our top story,” the anchorman said with an intense expression for the camera, “another slaying in Harvestfall. This time, our cameras were there before police could take the victim away, and this is what they saw. We warn you that these images may be too intense for some viewers.”

  Calico stopped. He watched as the camera focused in on the face of a dead man laying behind police barrier tape. He recognized that face. It was the guy from the Skunk’s Nest bar. The one with the leather jacket.

  On his forehead, a word was carved into his skin. “Rapist.”

  He sat down heavily on the bed. Another victim. Someone they had met just yesterday. He remembered how that guy had cupped Bridgett’s ass, coping a feel that she had not enjoyed at all…

  Oh, no. Oh, no no no. This case, she’d told him, was personal. All of the men who were murdered were rapists. This guy here had tried to feel Bridgett up.

  Rape. It was all about rape.

  “Bridgett!” he called out to her, even though he didn’t know if she’d be able to hear him through the walls. Or, for that matter, if she was still here. If what he was thinking was right then she might still be out there on the streets of Harvestfall somewhere, looking for men to kill.

  The FBI had a very strict vetting process for their agents. There were multiple psych tests you had to pass to get the job and then to keep it. That didn’t mean a few crazies didn’t slip through the cracks now and again. It happened.

  And he thought that Bridgett might be one of them. She was the werewolf killer.

  Calico had seen some damned strange things in his career, but was he ready to believe she was an actual werewolf? No. Killer, yes. Maybe she used a dog to help her and that’s what was eating these guys, and then she carved the word into them. He didn’t know. He only knew that he had to find out.

  Rushing out of the hotel room, tucking his shirt in as he went, Calico only had enough time to realize that he didn’t have any shoes on before he was through the door and running smack into someone.

  It was a guy with scraggly hair and a look on his face that said he really believed Calico was about to kill him. “Sorry, sorry,” Calico assured the guy. “In a hurry.”

  “You’re the FBI agent, right?”

  That stopped him in his tracks. “Uh, yeah. Who’re you?”

  “I…I was at the bar yesterday. The Skunk’s Nest. You said you wanted somebody to tell you ‘bout the werewolf killings.”

  Calico looked over at Bridgett’s door, then back at the man. “This is really a bad time. Uh, you got a phone or something?” Looking at the man’s threadbare flannel shirt and the jeans that had seen better days, Calico doubted the man would have a cell phone. Or even a place to live, maybe. “I can call you later. Or you can come back?”

  The guy started backing away slowly. “This was…this was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “No, wait.” Calico realized that he couldn’t let a potential witness get away, even if it maybe meant letting Bridgett cover up for a crime she’d just committed. He needed to find her and find out what she’d been doing while he was sleeping it off this morning.

  First, he needed to hear what this man had to say.

  “All right,” Calico said to encourage him. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I saw my buddy getting killed last night.” The man’s voice was quiet. His eyes were wide and dilated. “I saw that thing tear into him, man. I saw him…”

  The murder on the news, Calico realized. The guy meant the murder on the news. “You saw it? Dear God, man, what did you see?”

  Swallowing hard, he balled his hands into a fist and pressed them to his chest. “A demon, man. A devil with fur and claws and teeth. It was a damned werewolf!”

  The guy was shaking so hard his teeth rattled. All Calico could do was stare at him. Two witnesses now, both of them saying that the murders were committed by werewolves. Obviously, the guy had to be insane. There was no way.

  Besides. He still had his suspicions about Miss Bridgett Pearson, Special Agent of the FBI.

  “Look, buddy, I…” Calico scrubbed a hand over his face. “Look. Leave your name and number for me at the hotel’s front desk, will you? I’m in room fourteen. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “You don’t believe me?” The man’s face was pinched tight. He took a step back, and then another, and then he broke and ran. “I ain’t staying here to get eaten by a werewolf!”

  Calico tried to put crazy people out of his mind as he drew his gun from the holster at the back of his pants and knocked on Bridgett’s door.

  It swung inward with a creaking of the hinges. It hadn’t been closed.

  Inside, he found the walls raked with claw marks. The bedspread and pillows were shredded. Blood was smeared across the ugly brown rug.

  “Bridgett!” he called out frantically, looking through the bathroom and finding it empty as well. She wasn’t here.

  Where…?

  The bar. Of course! She went back to the bar to confront the other two guys who had been about to attack her last night. Damn that woman. How was he going to explain this to Molly?

  Back in his room he tugged on his shoes and gathered his things up, holding his cellphone to his ear the whole time. Molly’s number went straight to voicemail, and he left her a message that was sure to get him bounced from the FBI on the grounds that he was completely looney tunes.

  “Molly, this is Calico. That woman partner you put me with is the killer. I can’t explain it right now. Send someone to the motel you booked for us and go to room thirteen
. Have them process it. I’m going to get her now. It’s…she’s a…damn it Molly, this is why I don’t take partners!”

  Peeling out of the motel parking lot he headed straight for the Skunk’s Nest. It was morning, and the place wasn’t open for business. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

  There were lights on inside. The front door was open. Calico went in slowly, gun out, and waited for his eyes to adjust. Nobody was out here in the main room. To the right of the bar a door stood open, and it drew him in like he could smell trouble through it. Listening closely for any sound, he crossed the room in a tactical fashion, one step, drag the back foot forward, one step, drag the back foot forward.

  On the other side of the door, Bridgett was tied to a chair.

  There were bruises on her face, and her clothes were ripped apart to expose her perfect breasts and her most private areas. Calico ground his teeth. Whoever did this to her was going to pay.

  She’s a killer, he reminded himself. You can’t have sympathy for a killer.

  Across the room, a man was standing up, his back to Calico. The guy was naked, his pale white skin showing how little he got out into the sun. Snaking his pants up over his ass, the guy buttoned, and buckled, and then turned around.

  It was the man Calico had put down to the floor. One of the three who had tried to attack Bridgett. Oh, damn. In a flash the scene became obvious. She’d come here to kill him, too, but he’d gotten the drop on her. Tied her up.

  Raped her.

  His hand tightened on his gun. This bastard was going to jail, for sure, whether he ended up arresting Bridgett or not.

  He blinked at that thought. She was a killer. He had to arrest her. Why wouldn’t he? Just because he had sympathy for what she was trying to do? Killing bad men hardly counted as murder, right?

  The guy hadn’t seen Calico yet from his concealment behind the door. Waiting patiently, he kept his eye open for the perfect moment when he could pounce and not have anyone else get hurt. This was going to get sticky.

  Wait. Weren’t there three of these bastards?

  A sharp pain behind his head sent stars flying across his vision. He stumbled forward, into the room where Bridgett was being held, and onto his knees. His hands seemed to numb to hold his gun anymore. It fell with a loud clatter. Looking over his shoulder he saw the other guy from yesterday, the third one of the trio, holding a long metal pipe. Smacked me in the head, Calico thought, his mind sluggish. That’s what he did.

  Darkness started to crowd into the edges of his vision. Panting for breath he managed to look up into Bridgett’s eyes. “S’ok,” he slurred, “gonna get you out. Know what you did. Know you the werewolf. Get these bastards…for me…”

  He dropped to the floor, still staring up at her.

  She shook her head at him, over and over, obviously terrified.

  Kill the bastards, was his last coherent thought.

  Chapter Four

  He had no idea what time it was when he woke up again.

  At least, this time, he was still in the bar, he thought to himself. Still in that room where Bridgett had been held and molested. The waking up in strange motels thing was getting old.

  Calico smacked his lips together to get his tongue working, and then stood up. Which was when he realized he was naked. Well. Don’t that beat all?

  Looking around the room, his eyes took in the destroyed furniture, the overturned shelves, the bottles of liquor smashed on the floor. His head was pounding and it felt like he’d just run a marathon through quicksand and broken glass, but none of that mattered to him. A part of him noticed the claw marks everywhere, and the blood and he put the picture together. Bridgett had gone werewolf again and killed the two men. Now he found their bodies, in the corner behind him, chewed on and broke up and missing most of their midsections.

  “Damn girl,” he muttered, “you have to eat them each time?”

  For such a small framed woman she shouldn’t have anywhere to put that much food. His gorge rose again, and he had to stop thinking about it. Where was she, anyway?

  “Bridgett?”

  After a moment, she answered him. “I’m…back here.”

  Her voice sounded terrified, which he guessed made sense considering what she was. He’d told her she was the werewolf, hadn’t he? Things were a little fuzzy after he got smacked with a pipe. Bastard. Calico wasn’t sorry the guy was dead. He just felt sorry for Bridgett, now that she knew what she had done.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he said to her, following the sound of her breathing to a back corner where she sat cowering and curled into a ball, her clothes still hanging off her in tatters. “We’ll figure this out, okay?”

  “Stay…stay away from me!”

  Yeah. He’d heard that rape victims often didn’t want to be touched, or looked at even. For a strong-willed woman like her, this must have been a double sort of shock. Hurt her pride as much as her body.

  He knelt down, aware of being naked although he still didn’t understand why, keeping a good distance between him and her. “Bridgett, it’s okay. You killed these guys. I know. You killed all of them. You wanted to stop the rapists, and you killed them. You can’t help what you are. This werewolf, or whatever it is. You can’t help it. I don’t even know if what you’re doing is illegal, let alone wrong. The law considers murder the act of one person killing another. Nothing in there about wolves. Plus, these were some wicked evil men. I know that. I get it.”

  She was shaking her head, staring at him, clutching her arms around her nakedness. “You think I…? You think I’m the werewolf?”

  Oh, poor girl. She still didn’t get it. “Bridgett. I saw your hotel room. It’s all torn up. You and I were the only ones here with these two, and they both dead. I’m betting they have the word rapist scratched into them somewhere, too. You knew about the rapists who got off scot free because you’re in law enforcement and you have access to those kinds of records. You said this was personal. I’m betting this isn’t the first time you got raped, right?”

  “Wait, what? No…I mean, yes. I was raped when I was younger but that’s not…”

  “It’s okay,” he kept insisting for her. “Look, you need help. We’ll get the best doctors. We’ll figure this out.”

  Wow. Werewolves were real. He was about ready to crawl out of his own naked Black skin at the idea, but the proof was all around him. The two dead men. Bridgett. All of it fit.

  With trembling hands, she took out her cell phone from the back pocket of her ruined jeans. Facing the screen toward him, she played a video that was cued up and ready.

  It was this room. Things were crashing, and men were crying and screaming. The attack, Calico realized. She’d caught it on her cell. But…how? If she attacked those guys as a werewolf how could she…

  How could she…

  Oh. Damn it all to Hell.

  In the video, he watched a sleek black wolf-man hybrid tear through the stomach cavities of one of the dead men, eating the sloppy insides as he did. The thing’s teeth and fur glistened with sticky red blood. When it finished, it used one long and wickedly curved claw to etch a word into the victim’s arm.

  Rapist.

  The video showed the whole thing. It showed the werewolf clawing at the walls after the deed was done, howling, growling, acting crazy and spastic until it finally fell to the floor, arms and legs jerking, and then lay still.

  In a state of abject horror, Calico watched as the werewolf’s fur shivered and retracted back into the skin underneath. He heard loud snapping noises as arms and legs and chest reconfigured themselves. The head, too, snapped and collapsed and reshaped itself into a human beings. A man, with dark hair and a strong bull neck and features that were all too familiar to Calico.

  It was his own. He was the werewolf.

  Looking down at his naked self now, he saw the blood all over him. He could taste it in his teeth. He could touch it with his fingers.

  He was the werewolf.

  Him. It was him. />
  Everything he had thought about the case was right, except it wasn’t Bridgett. There had been one other person who had access to criminal records of people who got away with rape. There was someone else who had been in each spot the murders took place. Here in Harvestfall, and in Tulsa too. All those nights when he’d woken up after a blackout in a strange motel and not understood why or how. Now he knew. The werewolf had taken him. He’d blacked out and become this monster who killed evil men and then ran to a hole where he could clean up and forget it ever happened.

  How long, he wondered. How long had he been killing as a wolf?

  Staring down into Bridgett’s eyes, he had to wonder something else.

  How long would he keep doing it?

  “Don’t worry,” she said to him, her voice still trembling. “We’ll help you. We’ll get you the best doctors. And…and I’ll be with you. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

  He dropped to the floor. Just slumped down in a heap, his muscles giving out on him. His hand fell on his gun where it had ended up in the scuffle. His hand curled around it. He held it tight and put the barrel to the side of his head.

  Bridgett’s hand stopped him. “No,” she said gently. “That isn’t the way.”

  “Then what is?” He couldn’t feel anything. Not one damned thing.

  “Let me show you,” she said. “Let me show you what I need you for.”

  They left the bar before anyone could find them there. No one could know what he was.

  Or maybe the whole world was going to know. If he kept killing, how long would it be before they found out?

  His vision began to blur, and then turn black, and he felt himself slipping into the wolf.