by Amy Cross
This is my first time. I'm a wolf now. I don't even remember my old human name...
When Chaucer runs, we head after him. Not as fast as we could, but fast enough. I get a general sense that the pack is holding back. We could kill him in seconds, but we're going to make him suffer, the way he made us suffer. We're going to make him confront his own imminent death, the way that we confronted out own imminent death. But whereas we found a way to survive, we're going to make sure that he dies.
I have to admit that Patrick came through for us. It might have taken him until the last moment to come up with a plan, but he managed it. When the commandos swarmed into the Great Hall, everything seemed hopeless. But we fought. We fought and we won. Some of us died. Robin was one of the ones who died. But Duncan survived. So did Hamish. So did I. And so did about fifteen others. The last werewolves. Even the wolf cub, the one who Darla saved, managed to survive. And once we'd killed the humans, we quickly changed into their military costumes. Then we carried out the dead humans, and we vaporized them. Chaucer assumed we were his human soldiers. We let him believe that. And then finally we carried out Captain Lucas, who Duncan had managed to capture earlier while he was supposedly "checking the perimeter." Duncan had already smashed Lucas's face so that he couldn't talk. He couldn't warn Chaucer. So we told Chaucer that this was Duncan, and Chaucer believed it, and then we vaporized Lucas. By the end, Chaucer thought he'd killed all the werewolves. But really he'd just watched us vaporizing all his own soldiers. And then we waited, while Duncan put on Lucas's clothes and pretended to be the human soldier. Chaucer was fooled. Completely fooled.
And now we're hunting Chaucer. He runs, but we stay close to him. And finally he reaches the command tent from which he has been directing this genocide. We surround the tent. This is where he must die. It's somewhat appropriate. Darla would have loved the irony. Darla would have loved the chase.
I poke my face through the door, and see Chaucer fiddling with a small box. At first I can't make out what he's doing, but then I see that he has a syringe. I watch as he injects himself, then I realize that if he's trying to kill himself, I have to stop him. I race into the tent and leap at him, but he swings out and knocks me to the ground. I'm stunned for a moment, shocked that a human could be so strong. And as I get to my feet, and as other wolves come into the tent, I see Chaucer injecting himself again. Then he drops a small glass bottle onto the floor, and he turns to face us.
"You've misunderstood everything," he says, disturbingly calm and with an air of unexpected confidence. "I didn't really want to rid the world of werewolves. I just wanted to rid it of your particular strain of werewolves. And then..." He pauses, as if he's in pain. "You've forced me to speed things up a little, but that's okay. I can deal with that. I think. Maybe you can't. And things might be better this way. At least you'll get to see what's coming next. You'll get to see the next werewolf species." He doubles over in pain, clutching his stomach, then he drops to his knees.
We all keep back, not sure what to do. And slowly, we watch as Chaucer changes. When one of us switches from our human to wolf form, it's a quick process. But Chaucer is changing in an altogether more unusual way, as if his entire body is convulsing. Soon, though, he's no longer human, and where Chaucer stood there's now a large, vicious-looking wolf, snarling at us all. He looks bigger and stronger than the rest of us, and he has large, prominent veins that are visible through his fur. He looks like some kind of nightmare wolf, an over-pumped beast filled with steroids and mutated DNA.
Suddenly he leaps forward, grabbing another wolf in his jaws and throwing that wolf across the tent. Before anyone can react, Chaucer runs out of the tent. We follow, and find Chaucer outside. He's still in his wolf form, but he's risen up and is standing on his rear legs. He turns to face us, and we all stop, unsure of what to do. I look over at Duncan, hoping that he'll know what to do, but I can see the shock on his face. All the wolves seem to be holding back, trying to work out what to do now that we're facing what appears to be some kind of mutant. And then, just as I'm starting to wonder what we can do, Chaucer turns and runs.
None of us follow.
The others start shifting into their human forms, but I stay as a wolf.
"What was that?" one of the others asks.
"I have no idea," says Duncan. "But we have to kill it."
"That wasn't a werewolf," says Hamish. "That was something else completely."
Duncan turns to me. "Jess," he says. "I need to talk to you."
I stare at him, and it takes me a moment to realize that Jess is my name. For the first time, I've been completely absorbed in being a wolf. The adrenalin running through my body is pushing my human nature aside. But slowly, I realize that I have to shift out of this form, so I do.
"What?" I ask.
"I need you to go and wait for us," he says.
I stare at him. "Are you serious?"
"Very," he replies. "This isn't the kind of thing that you can help with. This requires... some degree of experience."
"I'm coming to help you get this creature," I say.
He shakes his head. "You'd just get in the way."
"Come on," Hamish says, interrupting. "We have to catch up to him."
They switch to their wolf forms and immediately race off after Chaucer. I turn to see that the wolf cub is the only one who has stayed behind. Damn it, am I supposed to just leave him alone? I look over to see Duncan and the other wolves disappearing rapidly over the horizon, hunting down Chaucer. Every inch of me wants to go with them, to help them. I feel so... human, being trapped back here. It's as if Duncan doesn't trust me, or he doesn't believe that I can do anything to help.
"Come on," I say to the cub, leading him back toward the tent.
"Freeze!" shouts a figure nearby. I turn to see a man in military uniform holding a gun straight toward me. He's so scared, he's shaking, and sweat is running down his face. "Don't move," he shouts. "Don't fucking move!"
I stare at him. With that gun, he could probably knock me out. And if the vaporizing machines are nearby, he could do a lot more.
"Don't," I say. "Put the gun down."
"What was that thing?" he shouts at me.
"The wolf thing?" I ask, trying to work out what to do. "That was Chaucer. He took some kind of injection and..."
"Chaucer?" the man says. "You're lying."
I pause, not sure what to say. "My name's Jess," I say. "What's yours?"
He doesn't answer at first. He just keeps the gun trained on me. "Withers," he says eventually. "John Withers."
"This battle's over," I say. "Your boss turned out to be a pretty big old werewolf himself, which is pretty Freudian if you think about it. If you kill me, the others will hunt you down. So just put the gun away and everything'll be okay."
He's clearly not convinced. "That was Chaucer?" he asks.
I nod. "I don't know what happened to him. He injected himself with something and then... you saw what happened next."
Withers keeps the gun trained on me for a moment, and then he slowly lowers it. "Chaucer's crazy," he says.
"I know," I say.
"I saw those syringes," he says. "I didn't know what was in them but -"
"Show me," I say.
With the wolf cub following us, Withers and I head into Chaucer's tent. Withers shows me a small box, but it's empty now. There are syringes on the floor.
"He was just a drug addict," Withers says.
"Not just any drug," I say. "Whatever was in these syringes, it was turning him into... whatever he became."
Withers goes to a set of bags by the door. "He had more of it," he says. "He had so much, I was never sure what the point was, but he injected himself several times a day."
I go to the table and look through the drawers. "Nothing here," I say. "But -"
There's a sudden scream from behind me. I turn to see Chaucer standing in the doorway, still in his wolf form, still standing on his rear legs. And as I watch, he rips Wither
s' head from his shoulders.
Jess
Dropping Withers' head to the floor, Chaucer starts walking toward me. The wolf cub runs to hide behind me as I back away, looking around in the hope that I'll find something I can use. But there's nothing, and soon Chaucer is almost on top of me.
"Run!" I shout to the wolf cub, and we both shift into our wolf forms. Chaucer swipes at me but I just about manage to slip around him, and then I instinctively turn around and bite his leg as hard as I can. I rip a chunk of flesh away from him and he falls to the ground as I try to get clear. I turn and see the wolf cub running, then I look back to see Chaucer trying to get to his feet. Blood is pouring from the wound on his leg.
My first instinct is to run. But as I look, I see Chaucer's wound is already starting to heal. He's getting stronger by the second, so I rush at him and bite the side of his neck, ripping half of it away. Blood flows across my face as I land and turn, and he reaches out and tries to grab me. I immediately bite at his arm, biting straight through and ripping part of it away from his body.
From behind me, there's a noise and Duncan arrives. Without even stopping to look at me, he jumps straight onto Chaucer and bites a chunk from his shoulder. I leap at Chaucer's face and bite off as much as I can, then I fall to the ground, turn and bite one of his feet off. He falls to the ground, with Duncan ripping more flesh from his body. I go to bite his head again, but he lashes out and knocks me back, then he throws Duncan to the ground and climbs on top of him.
As I get to my feet, Chaucer starts to shift back to his human form, but then he seems to get stuck halfway between the two. His human face roars out at us from his werewolf body. Duncan reaches up to bite him, but Chaucer puts a hand around Duncan's throat and forces him back down. Turning to me, Chaucer roars again but I duck away from his other hand and clasp my jaw around his waist, biting down hard. Blood flows into my mouth, and I feel Chaucer grab the back of my neck and lift me up.
"Damned werewolves," Chaucer says, blood erupting from his mouth as he bites my shoulder. Although he still has his human, rather than wolf, mouth, he still manages to pull some of my flesh away. He then roars in pain as Duncan bites more of his neck. The problem is, Chaucer seems to be healing faster than a normal werewolf. Whatever we do to him, the wound heals up almost completely in just a minute or two.
I look over and see Withers' decapitated body on the other side of the tent, with the gun still in his pocket. Pulling myself free from Chaucer, I limp over. As Duncan screams behind me, I grab the gun, turn and fire straight at Chaucer. Then again. Then again. And finally a fourth time, before the gun is empty. Chaucer drops to the ground and releases Duncan, but he's still conscious and still breathing.
Duncan shifts to his human form. "Grab him!" he shouts.
Still in my wolf form, I grab hold of Chaucer's body and start dragging him out of the tent, with Duncan - in his human form - helping. We get him over to where one of the vaporizer machines is parked, and we throw him into the back. The machine isn't switched on, and I run around to look for the way to turn it on. Duncan follows and finds the button, punching it with his fist. A grinding sound starts up and blood starts to spray from the machine.
Duncan searches frantically for the button to start the vaporizer I run around the back of the machine to try to find it, but as I pass the back of the machine I look in and see Chaucer being sliced up by the grinder. Because he can heal so quickly, the pieces of flesh keep recombining and trying to reform, only to be cut up again and again. And in that mess of flesh that is being constantly ground into pieces, there's a face - half human, half werewolf - roaring out at me, and one arm starts reaching to try to grab me. Each piece of flesh keeps getting sliced away, but other pieces grow back. I stare and stare, and suddenly Chaucer grabs my neck and starts pulling me into the machine. I try to hold back, but he's too strong. And then, just as I think I'm about to get free, I lose my grip on the side of the machine and I'm pulled in. The blades slice through my body, ripping my lower torso apart, and I reach out to try to grab hold of something, but it's too late and I'm pulled all the way into the machine.
Then there's a flash of bright white light, and everything goes dark.
***
I open my eyes and look up at a bright blue sky. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, and then I remember the feeling of the huge blades slicing through my body. And the flash of the vaporizer. And -
I sit up and see that I'm on a patch of grass near a forest. I get to my feet and run my hands over my body. I'm in my human form, and I seem to be totally healed. I turn and look around. I have no idea where I am, or how I got here.
"You look better," says a voice behind me. I turn to find Hamish walking out of the woods. "I told Duncan you'd wake up on my watch."
"On your watch?" I ask.
He smiles. "You've been healing. It took you a couple of days, and Duncan and I have been taking turns watching over you."
"What happened?" I say, still stunned.
"Well," he says, "you came within a couple of inches of being pulled into the vaporizer. Fortunately, you were just clear. You got cut into quite a few little pieces, though. Took a hell of a time for your healing powers to work their magic."
I take a deep breath. Is that really what happened? I got cut up into little pieces and then spent a couple of days slowly healing back together?
"What about Chaucer?" I ask.
"Vaporized," says Hamish. "Gone. Thanks to you and Duncan."
I think back to the last thing I remember. I was looking at Chaucer as he was trapped in that machine, the blades constantly cutting him up, his pieces of flesh constantly reassembling, his face roaring out toward me. A shiver goes up my spin.
"Are you sure he's dead?" I ask. "I mean... really, really sure."
"Completely vaporized," Hamish says.
We walk together back toward what remains of the military camp. Duncan spots us and comes over, and he and I embrace.
"Have you seen?" he asks.
I stare at him for a moment, and then I see the wolf cub running past. He's completely healed.
"I wish Darla had survived," I say.
"Everything has its time," Duncan replies. "At least she died for a reason. Most people don't have that privilege. Most people die of old age, but Darla died saving a younger life."
I nod. "I keep expecting her to have survived somehow."
Duncan puts an arm around me. "When things die," he says slowly, "they die. They become very still. But they sleep in our minds, and they're still there. You'll never forget Darla."
"What about the humans?" I ask. "Won't they just launch another attack? And another?"
"Don't worry about that," Duncan says, leading me away from the others. "I'm going to sort that out once and for all."
"Let me guess," I say. "You've got a plan."
"I do!" he says. He sees that I'm not convinced. "I do! Didn't I come up with a plan last time?"
"Yes," I say reluctantly.
"And I've already got a new plan this time," he says. "Although I'll need your help. Again."
"And then what?" I ask.
"And then..." His voice trails off. "I'm supposed to stay here now. To stay on the estate forever. To help rebuild the society we once had here."
I nod. I understand that he has this duty, and... Looking around, I figure I could probably get used to a life here. It's not a bad place to live, and the others seem friendly enough.
"Don't worry," says Duncan. "We're not actually gonna stay."
"We're not?" I ask.
"No," he replies. "I was thinking we could head abroad for a while. Werewolves of India, how does that sound? Or we could..." He smiles. "We could stay here and repopulate the species."
"Werewolves of India sounds fine," I say.
"Cool," he says. He seems lost in thought for a moment. "Do you remember that first night I met you? When you were living rough in London and you found me in that building?"
I
nod. "It seems like such a long time ago."
He smiles. "I could tell, even at that first meeting, that I was going to see you again. Even after you almost got me killed by Frank Marshall."
"Sorry about that," I say. "So, what's this plan of yours?"
"Plan?"
"To make sure that the humans never, ever attack the werewolves again?"
"Oh..." His voice trails off.
"You don't have a plan at all, do you?"
"I do!" he insists. "I really do. It's just that it's... well, it's a bit weird. And crazy. And stupid. Slightly dangerous. Maybe even rather dumb. But it'll work. All my plans work."
"Uh-huh." I pause for a moment. For the first time, I feel as if I'm as much wolf as I am human. Something about me was awoken in the frenzy of the fight. I'm different. "I've got a much better plan."
Epilogue 1
Doctor Hastings looked at the naked body on the slab. He sighed. Another Friday night, another old woman to cut open. It hardly seemed worth bothering to determine a cause of death. Just writing down 'Old Age' would usually cover most cases like this. But there were procedures to complete and rules to follow, so he had to get the job done. Usually he'd have an assistant at a time like this, but it was late and he couldn't be bothered to call anyone in.
He checked the name on the toe tag.
"Hello Margaret," he said wearily. "Sorry we have to meet under such difficult circumstances."
He grabbed the rib-spreaders and started to cut down the middle of Margaret's chest. But as he did so, he became aware of something unusual coming from the wound. He looks closer. It was... It looked like... light. Energy. As if something inside the old woman's body was shining bright.
Hastings stopped. Heading over to the other side of the mortuary, he picked up the phone and dialed a number. He waited, and eventually a voice answered on the other end.