The Werewolf Chasers (Book 3): Wolf Hunt 3

by Strand, Jeff

  "Let's take the stairs," he said.

  They ran for the stairwell. Eugene did a fine job keeping up, so though he was badly hurt, he apparently wasn't in danger of his internal organs spilling out and rolling down the steps.

  George would've preferred to wait a moment, to give werewolf-Asher an opportunity to increase the distance between them, but there were several werewolves in the hallway and George had only one silver bullet, so the stairwell was their safest bet.

  He pushed open the door.

  Asher was right there waiting for him.

  Did this mean he was thinking like a human again? Was the impact of the whistle wearing off?

  Asher grabbed George by the shoulders and tried to fling him down the stairs. It didn't quite work, but he did manage to bash George against the wall, which then caused him to fall down the entire flight of stairs. He struck the wall at the bottom and lay there, dazed.

  Asher raced down after him.

  George shot him in the head.

  Asher tumbled down the stairs. George realized that a very large dead werewolf was falling down the stairs toward him, and got out of the way just as Asher struck the bottom, now halfway back to his human form. A few seconds later he'd reverted back entirely.

  George stood up. He wanted to say something like, "You look ridiculous in that cloak," but when you were making a final comment to somebody you'd just killed, you had to do better than that.

  Lou and Eugene hurried down after him. "Are you okay?" Lou asked.

  "My arms, legs, chest, head, and ass hurt, but I'm not dead."

  "Good. Let's get out of this place."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bye-Bye

  The three of them hurried down the stairs. As they reached the first floor, George heard footsteps beneath them, which was surprising, since none of the werewolves could've gotten down here this quickly.

  George passed the first floor door and kept going. He caught a glimpse of J.P.

  "Hey, asshole!" George shouted.

  J.P. looked up at him, gave him the finger, and pushed the basement door open.

  George supposed that he could leave J.P. alone and just flee the building, but he wanted to tie up this particular loose end in a big way. "Eugene, Lou, wait here. I'm going to take care of him."

  "You're not doing it alone," said Lou.

  "Eugene, wait here. We're going to take care of him."

  "Okay," said Eugene, sitting down and putting his arms over his chest.

  George and Lou ran down the stairs and followed J.P. into the basement.

  J.P. looked around, as if searching for an exit. When he didn't see one, but he did see George pointing a gun at him (J.P. didn't need to know it was empty) his shoulders slumped and he gave George and Lou a sad smile. "Well, shit."

  "You probably should've escaped while you had the chance," said George.

  "Yeah, well, I didn't have the chance. How'd my whistle work? Was there a lot of carnage upstairs?"

  "It didn't work at all. Everybody just kind of awkwardly stood there."

  "Nice try. I listened for a little bit. You know, there's a lot of money to be made in the fear business. I'm a pragmatic guy, and I bet the both of you are too, so why not put aside our differences and work out a deal?"

  "Give me your phone or I'll shoot you in the face," said George.

  "Why didn't you just shoot me in the face and then take my phone?" J.P. asked.

  "Because that would have been impolite."

  "George, George, George. You can't fool me. The fact that you didn't kill me the second you saw me means that you understand what kind of financial benefit is available to you."

  "Are you about to do an infomercial?"

  "Millions, George. Your share will be millions."

  "Give me your phone."

  "All right, all right." J.P. reached under his shirt.

  "Stop!"

  "What?"

  "I said stop!"

  "You asked me to give you my phone."

  "You were going for a gun."

  "I was not!"

  "Hands where I can see them."

  "What's that sound behind me?"

  "Deformed werewolf babies."

  "No, seriously, what is it?"

  "I am serious. Deformed werewolf babies."

  "Is that gun even loaded?" J.P. asked.

  "I'll be happy to show you."

  "Yeah, why don't you do that? It just seems weird that you haven't shot me yet. I kind of feel like you used up all of the bullets getting away from those werewolves."

  George charged at him.

  J.P. pulled a gun out from underneath his shirt.

  One of the very last things in the world that George wanted was to go back into the pit, but if he tried to slow down, J.P. would shoot him.

  He smashed into J.P., knocking him over the edge. George's momentum carried him over the edge as well, and they both plunged into the pit.

  J.P. landed on a couple of the creatures. George landed on J.P.

  George pulled the gun out of J.P.'s hand. J.P. didn't resist as George patted his pockets then took his cell phone. He didn't move as George stood up. He didn't even glance around at the horrors that surrounded him.

  "I...I think you broke my back..." he said.

  "That sucks," said George. "Sorry." He tapped the screen of J.P.'s phone. "It wants a passcode. Give it to me."

  "Burn in hell."

  "It'll also take a fingerprint" He grabbed J.P.'s hand, pressed his thumb against the screen, and unlocked it. "Thank you."

  Lou slid the ladder over the edge. George hurried over to it and began to climb out.

  The creatures crawled over J.P. His eyes were wide with panic.

  "Don't leave me down here!" he pleaded.

  George climbed to the top of the ladder. J.P. was going to have an extremely unpleasant demise, but if he was lucky his body would be numb from the broken spine and he wouldn't feel much of it.

  "Sorry," said George. "I'd put you out of your misery, but I can't waste any bullets."

  It was true. With a plentiful supply of ammunition and no werewolves possibly blocking their way to the exit, he would have spared J.P. the ghastly fate that awaited him. Alas, he needed to conserve bullets, so J.P. was just going to have to suck it up.

  George and Lou hurried out of the basement.

  They rejoined Eugene and stepped out into the waiting room, which was refreshingly werewolf-free. They hurried to the front door. It wouldn't open.

  "Are you kidding me?" George asked.

  "Is it jammed?" asked Eugene.

  "No, it's not jammed, it's just locked. I wonder if I can shoot the lock?"

  "You're out of silver bullets."

  "I got a new gun from J.P."

  "Then in that case, I'm going back upstairs," said Eugene.

  "What?"

  "I can't leave Ally behind. I just can't do it. I'm sorry."

  "Why didn't you say that before we came down here?"

  "We didn't have a new gun then."

  George shook his head. "No. You and Lou stay here and try to see if there's a way to get that door open. I'll go get her."

  Before they could protest, he ran to the elevator. He pressed the button, expecting them to protest while he waited for the doors to open. They didn't, but that was okay, it was a legitimate offer and he didn't want them to try and talk him out of it.

  The doors opened. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. Lou and Eugene still didn't protest. That was fine. No problem.

  When he reached the third floor and the doors opened, George kept his finger hovered over the first floor button just in case he needed to make a quick exit. But no werewolf was outside the elevator doors. He stepped out into the hallway.

  It was empty, but he heard crying. Lots of crying.

  He cautiously walked back to the Ceremony Room, ready to shoot any werewolf that attacked him, even if it was Ally. But when he looked ins
ide, all he saw were humans. Some lay dead on the floor. Others were seriously injured. Those less badly hurt were tending to those with more severe wounds, but it didn't look like any of the werewolves had made it through unscathed.

  Ally had her hand pressed tightly against a woman's chest, trying to keep a spurting wound closed. It didn't seem to be working.

  Ivan lay on the floor, still alive. Aside from whatever had happened to his leg before J.P. blew the whistle, he seemed to have fared relatively well. George crouched next to him.

  Ivan didn't seem happy to see him. "Just kill me and get it over with."

  "I'm going to use you as a test subject to see if The Melt is bullshit." He tapped the screen of J.P.'s cell phone. He swiped a couple of times until he saw an icon that was a melting ice cream cone. Cute.

  When the app loaded, it had two names: Ivan Spinner and Lou Flynn.

  He touched Ivan's name. Ivan's picture came up.

  There were two buttons. Scare and Melt. Scare must've been the nipple thing. George pressed Melt.

  The Melt was not bullshit.

  It seemed to be more frightening than it was painful. George honestly wasn't feeling particularly vindictive, so instead of watching the whole process he tried to help Ally save the woman's life. They were unsuccessful.

  When he looked back at Ivan, nothing remained but a skeleton covered with ooze. Despite J.P. saying that the name was something of a misnomer, it really did look like Ivan's flesh and guts had melted.

  George would definitely be deleting that app from the phone.

  "Hey, Ally, we should get out of here."

  She nodded.

  George stood up. "Hey, uh, everybody? I know you're busy, but I wanted to let you know that the guy who did this, the one with the whistle...he's dead. And it was bad. So there's that."

  He didn't expect anybody to applaud, and nobody did.

  "Also, Asher, your leader, he's dead too. You'll find him in the stairwell. I don't know if you'll think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I think it's a good thing. He was pretty fuckin' evil. He threw my friend Lou and I into the pit. I don't know if you're all allowed in the basement or not, but you really can't be a good person at heart if you're throwing people into the pit. You shouldn't have the pit in the first place. That's messed up. Anyway, you have a lot to deal with, but this place does seem pretty nice, and you've still got the van and cars if any of you want to head back to Georgia. I think Diane may be evil, so you'll want to address that, but it's a very nice compound and without that raging psychopath J.P. in charge I think it'll be a better living experience overall. I'm not going to say a word about this place or anything that happened. You guys can work this out however you want. I'm out of here. Bye-bye."

  Ally took his hand and they left the Ceremony Room.

  * * *

  Lou had found a button at the receptionist's desk that unlocked the door, so as soon as George and Ally made it downstairs, they got the hell out of the building. They decided to leave the truck behind so that they didn't have to spend twice as much on gas, so they piled into the car and drove the hell away from there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Family

  "We have no money," said George.

  "Correct," said Lou.

  "The car is making funny sounds."

  "Correct."

  "Wesley's body is still in the trunk," said Eugene.

  "Say what?"

  "Yeah, we never had a chance to dump it. We told you that."

  "The hell you did," said George. "No, wait, now I remember. Sorry, I've had a lot on my mind. We'll count Wesley's body in the trunk as one of our many problems. What else? We're all hurt pretty bad."

  "But," said Lou, "at least none of us have to go to the hospital."

  "Eugene probably should."

  "I'm fine," said Eugene.

  "I'm sorry about that," said Ally.

  "You could've done worse."

  "Can you all please shut up while I list the challenges facing us?" asked George.

  "We do have a lot of challenges," said Lou. "But we have each other, and isn't that really all that matters?"

  "Shut the fuck up, Lou."

  "Okay."

  "We're travelling with a fifteen-year-old orphan girl. I'm sure that won't get us in trouble at any point. We should probably get you enrolled in school or something."

  "Fine with me," said Ally. "I like school. We just need to pick a destination."

  "Someplace warm," said Eugene. "But not too warm. Moderate climate."

  "I'm in favor of a moderate climate," said Lou. "And someplace with a low cost of living, since we're broke."

  "What about California?" asked Ally.

  "California doesn't have a low cost of living," said George.

  "It has a moderate climate."

  "No, it's hot as hell."

  "Depends where you live."

  "You know what," said Lou, "we have plenty of time to discuss this. For now, let's just be happy about the fact that we all lived to see another day."

  "I'm very happy about that," said Eugene.

  "Me too," said Ally.

  "Sounds good to me," said George. "Let's just enjoy the drive."

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Lynne Hansen, Michael McBride, Chris Morey, Jim Morey (no relation to Chris), Rhonda Rettig, and Paul Synuria II for their assistance with this novel.

  Remember: Readers who leave reviews deserve great big hugs!

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