by Hunter Blain
Relief began to trickle down from the top of Jesus’ head to his core, similar to the sensation of first stepping into a warm shower. The thing of nightmares veered to its left at a sharp angle and disappeared into the brush. Jesus let loose the breath he had been holding and exploded with an adrenaline-dumping laugh as he turned to face the cab.
With a tear-filled smile, Jesus carefully made his way to the front of the truck bed and rapped a knuckle on the window a few times.
Jose looked up from the road to look in the rearview mirror and was surprised to see a smiling Jesus. With both hands gripping the wheel in fists as strong as industrial vises, Jose fully turned in his seat to look at Jesus, who was giving the universal thumbs-up sign. Tears were streaming down his face, and Jose didn’t know if they were from terror or relief.
Jose barked out a sound that wasn’t quite a yell as frustration melted, and he returned his gaze just in time to take the turn down the hill.
Jose couldn’t see it, but Jesus’ smile plunged downward as if the corners of his lips were being solely targeted by gravity. How could he have forgotten how the road wound its way after traveling the path a few hundred times? A moan formed in his mouth as the truck took the turn down the hill before dread clutched at his throat like an inflating balloon made of ice, cutting off the sound of despair.
With a sluggish head that felt numb and a single chuckle of disbelief, Jesus turned to look up the hill as a missile the size of a van plowed into him, tearing the back of the cabin off with the protest of squealing metal.
Jose was rocked to the side as the back of his seat was torn free, disappearing into the night with the end of the cab.
The truck veered to the left as the back end attempted to go a direction perpendicular to the front. On instinct alone, Jose grabbed the wheel and tried to arrest the slide that was determined to transition into a full roll.
Turning the wheel in the direction he wanted the truck to go, Jose gritted his teeth as he let off the gas with a degree of control that was unbeknownst to the man until that moment.
Once the truck straightened out, Jose applied pressure to the gas again and was greeted with buildings that only a city could hold. For some reason that Jose couldn’t articulate, he once again felt relief as the country scene was swallowed by the cityscape. It was as if the new vicinity erased the impossible situation that his brain was urgently trying to decipher.
Warm wind tickled the back of his neck and tugged at his hair. Without being instructed to do so, a hand shot up to his skull and a light curse escaped his lips at the realization that he had lost the cowboy hat that Martin had given to him.
Jose tried to lean back in his frustration, almost losing his grip on the wheel as his backside met with nothing but air. He turned and witnessed the decimation wrought by a monster that was all too real.
The entire truck bed had been ripped free, exposing the skeleton that were the driveshaft, frame, and rear tires. Something steadily squeaked in protest as he drove. Eyes moving around where the cab should have been, he saw pink clouds of dawn hovering along the tops of buildings and houses. Only the windshield and frame remained, prompting a shudder from the man.
The wind tugged at his wet shirt, peeling back a little more with each flap, prompting Jose to wince.
Rays from the morning sun pierced the veil of night and washed over Jose’s face. The warmth highlighted the tears that had begun jumping to their deaths from Jose’s eyes. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying.
Jose began a series of slow chuckles that came in three-second waves followed by an identical few heartbeats of sullen silence, only to repeat again. Empty laughter morphed into sobs that robbed him of his breath, ending in a wheeze as his veins bulged through his skin. Snot ran into his mouth but wasn’t noticed. What was noticed was the sting in his back that had begun to grow precipitously while adrenaline steadily faded.
As pain declared war against the other sensations and emotions for the attention of Jose, the man stiffened his upper lip and wiped his face with his flannel sleeve. The road hummed a steady rhythm, lulling him into a fabricated sense of well-being. Even the whining of whatever broken component in the tail end of the truck provided a sense of normality.
Streetlights turned off and gave way to the sun as Jose drove. Still in disbelief, he let his mind wander, and a seemingly spontaneous thought burrowed into the forefront of his mind. Jose had watched The Discovery Channel for countless hours during his shifts at the house. A particular episode played in his mind about wolves and their hunting habits. Jose didn’t realize it at the time, but the creeping importance of that episode would come full circle. It was funny to think about how something so insignificant at the time could be replayed in the mind when concerning your continued existence. You see, the most interesting portion of this particular episode had been about canines being able to hunt their prey for miles and miles after catching their scent.
* * * * *
Warm light peeked through his eyelids, steadily bringing Jesus back to consciousness. It had all been a bad dream, but now he was safe in his bed. He took in a deep breath and let it out in relief. He noticed aches pooled at various parts of his body as his consciousness struggled to take hold.
Someone must have been making breakfast in the kitchen because the sounds of mixing oatmeal caught his attention. But something was off. Either he had superhero hearing now or someone was stirring their breakfast bowl and slurping loudly at the foot of his bed. They were also tugging at his legs, trying to get him to wake up.
Must be one of the kids, Jesus thought to himself with a smile as he blinked his eyes open. Blades of grass tickled his ears and cheeks while another tug rocked his body, followed by more slurping and chewing. Jesus hated when people chewed with their mouths open.
He lifted his head and rested his chin on his chest as his unfocused eyes regained their vision, and Jesus gasped as yellow eyes locked onto his. Confusion and terror fought for dominance as the man followed the face of the creature which ended inside his stomach. The wolf yanked back and took with it a mouthful of what Jesus knew to be his intestines.
As his head cleared, the nerves which had been patiently waiting their turn flooded his brain with signals of undreamed agony. Jesus began to release the most genuine scream of his entire life, only to have it broken off as the wolf casually reinserted its muzzle into his torso and tore away his diaphragm.
While the nerves stood and demanded attention at the forefront of his mind, the overwhelming desire to suck in a breath knocked over the pain signals and overtook his entire world. He wanted nothing more than to have sweet air fill his deflating lungs as his hands clawed at his own throat.
Wide eyes scanned the horizon, seemingly not caring about the wolf any longer. Jesus’ head rested on the grass, all of a sudden too heavy to be lifted, as the light of the sky was swallowed by darkness. He wanted nothing else in the whole world. Only the . . . desi . . . desire to . . . to . . . brea . . .
Chapter 4
A wolf . . .” Hector repeated Jose’s words dubiously. There was a hushed chorus of chuckles from the people standing around the room.
“No, man. Not a wolf. A goddamn werewolf. It, like, walked on two feet and stuff! But it had hands,” Jose tried to explain. But even he was having trouble with the story, and it made him agitated.
“Someone check this man for drugs,” Hector mocked, smiling from ear to ear. No one moved forward, catching the jest.
“Please, jefe. You gotta believe me, man. It got Martin and Jesus! They’re dead, man!” Jose pleaded as the pitch in his voice climbed. He felt like a child trying to convince his parents of something but unable to articulate it, which caused unimaginable frustration. Jose leaned back in defeat and crinkled the plastic he was sitting on. It had been pulled from a nearby pantry and skillfully placed over the chair once they had seen his back.
Someone Jose didn’t recognize leaned down to whisper in Hector’s ear while showing him his
phone. Hector’s face remained unreadable as whatever he had just been told was processed by his calculating mind. Jose shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the cartel boss’ eyes roamed over his body, stopping momentarily at Jose’s blood-stained hand.
With a snap of Hector’s fingers, two imposing men went to either side of Jose and expertly grabbed his wrists and shoulders, hefting him to his feet aggressively.
“Wha-what? I didn’t do nothing, man! Please, jefe, you gotta believe me! It was a werewolf!” Jose had trouble believing his own words as they spilled from his panicked mouth. How could he expect someone like Hector — who had heard every lie under the sun — to accept what he was saying.
Defeat stole his will to fight and Jose’s knees buckled. The men solidified their grip on his shoulders as they lead him away, dragging his feet over the floor as they went.
As they passed through a hallway, Jose felt his boots snag on the carpet and perform a sort of bounce, and he wondered why Hector had never remodeled any of his houses. Who had carpet anymore?
A familiar door came into view — one he had seen many a transgressor disappear into during his initial interview — which gave Jose a new lease on life. His interviewer had explained about the hidden cameras and how they had caught several naughty men with their hands in the cookie jar.
“What will happen to them?” Jose had asked.
“Justice,” the lieutenant had responded with a smile.
As the room was opened, Jose kicked his feet out and planted them on the doorframe while repeatedly crying out, “No!” like a broken record.
One of the men lashed out with a proficient kick, knocking Jose’s foot off the frame and slipping it into the room. He followed by pulling Jose after him as they carried him sideways into the makeshift prison.
Several steel cages lined the room along the walls, with two housing occupants who cowered at the sight of the burly men. A part of Jose’s mind thought they had been caught skimming off the top and deserved to be in here. Realization permeated throughout his thoughts as he was tossed unceremoniously into his own cage, now equal to the guilty men in Hector’s eyes.
As the iron door was slammed shut, a padlock was set in place. Jose curled into a ball as the men commented on the sticky blood on their hands and left the room. As they were shutting the door behind them, the light spilling in from the doorway rushed along the wall to escape back into the hallway as the door clicked closed, as if scared to be locked inside the room with the soon-to-be dead men. Jose’s entire world was bathed in inky blackness as his eyes tried desperately to adjust. Funny that he hadn’t noticed that the windows had been built over as he had parked for his interview. Nor had he ever paid attention to the insulating tape that had been secured under the door to further block light from entering the room.
Jose sobbed. Though he knew he was probably going to die by the hands of his comrades, he didn’t care. He cried as his mind tried to transfer the events of the night from short- to long-term memory. It hurt in a way he had never felt before. It was as if his brain refused the synapse connections and instead sent the memory into the deepest, darkest recesses of his skull, digging trenches into the folds of his head as it fled.
Jose was tempted to let his mind disregard the memories, but his father hadn’t raised a weak man. Instead, he played the events over and over in his mind’s theater, solidifying the synapse connections and accepting what may come as a result. He knew he would be ousted as crazy, and had even considered the fact that he might very well have lost his mind.
The outline of his wife’s smiling, youthful face appeared a few inches in front of his eyes. On the back of her beautiful auburn hair rested the silver brooch that looked more to Jose like a pretty comb you left in. Her face morphed into the giggling baby Ana as blurring lips created milk bubbles. Julian came next, laughing on the couch while trying to get away from the kissy monster. Jose’s head hung low as he sobbed. His heart ached for his family, for if he was escorted off this mortal coil — whether by man or wolf — there would be no one to provide for them.
Jose’s ears rang with a continuous whine, and he briefly wondered how people had gunfights in confined spaces without permanently damaging their hearing.
Time passed, the sharp whining in his ears diminishing to a dull ache, and Jose didn’t know if it had been minutes or hours. Only his aching hunger, which was increasing in its unrelenting ferocity, told him that the hour hand on the clock must have been passing like minutes.
Light burst into the room like an explosion from a nuclear warhead as the door was opened. Jose shot to shield his eyes with a groan as the two large men approached his cell and methodically undid the lock on his prison.
Burly hands the size of lunch boxes gripped Jose’s wrists, and he was yanked from his cell and dragged back into Hector’s office. They plopped him in the now familiar chair that was not designed for comfort. They hadn’t changed the plastic covering the seat, and dried blood still coated it.
Jose rubbed his sore eyes and squinted at the cartel boss for the region.
“Do you have anything you would like to add or change about your . . . fantastical story?” Hector said with a deep, smooth voice, sounding like a narrator or DJ.
Jose answered by slowly shaking his head, as if in doing so he might have been signing his own death warrant.
The smile that seemed to be a permanent fixture on Hector’s face dropped a little. Though his lips were still curled at the corners, his eyes dropped all pretense of his faux expression.
Jose let his eyes slide off the boss and slip to the window where the light had begun to recede and give way to the darkness. His stomach rumbled in audible demand for sustenance.
Hector continued to regard Jose for a long, intense moment as his practiced smile never faded.
“A werewolf,” Hector said, a statement rather than a question.
Jose slowly, purposefully, nodded in reply. His eyes were near vacant from hours of weeping, with dark tea bags hanging underneath like identical Christmas wreaths on a door.
“It would seem that preliminary reports from the local officials — of which I all but own — are corroborating your story. That, and the pieces of security footage we could put together. Please, tell us again the events of last night.” Hector lit a cigar before leaning back in his plush red leather office chair. The fragrance of vanilla overwhelmed the room like an industrial-strength air freshener.
Jose opened his cracked lips and tried to speak, but only a croak came forth.
Hector snapped his fingers and pointed at Jose, and someone slipped gracefully out of the room. As Hector puffed on his cigar, he paused to hold it up and made a show of appreciating the stogie in front of his audience. Jose heard the unmistakable clinking of ice being dropped into a glass, and his dry tongue licked his barren lips in a Pavlovian response.
A few heartbeats later and a well-dressed man in a butler’s ensemble — that Jose had somehow missed in the chaos — swooped in with a silver tray. Positioned on the tray was a bottle of expensive-looking water imported from somewhere in Europe, a glass that Jose thought might actually be crystal, and a thick piece of beef jerky. Perfectly clear ice glistened in the glass, promising a cooling pleasure that Jose would sell his soul for at that moment.
Jose snatched the bottle eagerly and began a deep pull from the cool, refreshing water. Nothing had ever tasted so good in his entire life, even without the ice.
“Slowly,” Hector cautioned as he exhaled a plume of white smoke, “You don’t want to get sick.”
Jose lowered the half-empty bottle of water and picked up the beef jerky. He took a tentative bite and exhaled in elation. He then poured the rest of the bottle into the fancy-looking glass in an effort to appease his boss. Nothing bothered those with an expensive palate more than someone ignoring the quality and price of the household items that were perpetually on display.
“You like it, yes? It is from my own private stock. Only the freshest cuts lig
htly seasoned with pepper, salt, onion, and garlic. My personal favorites.”
Jose answered by taking a larger bite of the beef jerky and chewing quickly. Hector’s permanent smile brightened at the approval from Jose.
“Tender and succulent, yes?” Hector asked.
“Yes, jefe,” Jose responded respectfully.
Hector momentarily scowled as he looked at Jose’s dirty, bloody shirt. He nodded to his butler while pinching his own shirt and lifting it once.
Hector looked around the room and addressed the men standing at the ready.
“Boys. It would appear that we have a werewolf on our hands. What do we know about them?”
The soldiers around the room shifted where they stood, exchanging unsure glances with one another.
“I. Am. Serious,” Hector enunciated clearly with pauses for emphasis.
“Silver,” said a man with a buzz cut and a scar running from his eyebrow to the back of his head.
“I heard something about wolfsbane once,” another man added. He was shorter than the others and had his black hair slicked back.
“What about the full moon? I thought that wasn’t for a few days or somethen,” another one interjected.
“Jose,” Hector said with authority while looking at a man at his side. Jose swallowed a piece of his jerky and looked up, confused. “Not you, this Jose. Jose, go to the apothecary and try to get as much wolfsbane as you can.”
“Right, jefe,” the man responded before he began to make his way out of the room. Halfway to the door, a thought stopped him and he turned and said, “What if they don’t have any?”
“Then try the fucking Walmart. I don’t care. Just don’t come back without any.”
“Yes, jefe,” Other Jose said before stepping into the hallway and out of First Jose’s sight. Then again, to Other Jose, First Jose was the “other” Jose.
“Junior. Go procure as much silver ammo as you can. And before you open your mouth and embarrass yourself — if you can’t find any, find someone who can smelt some. Got it?”