Breeds 2 (8 page)

There were other sounds as well, heard in between breaths as deep as canyons. The subtle shifting and pop of flesh as it repaired itself. The greasy bacon and eggs crackle of the regenerative process in full gear. Morris’s face rippled in the dark every now and again, as if an invisible brush feathered and smoothed out the horrific damage of his burns.

Kirk studied the process in between glances out the window.

He was very grateful for the dark.

That Friday, at ten minutes to four in the morning, paramedics delivered the body bag to the medical examiner building at the very end of Percy Street, near a wooden copse and hillside that had already been earmarked for development later in the year. They deposited the corpse on a steel bed and unzipped the bag. A toe was tagged and paperwork was filled out, signed off, and handed over. Once the paramedics left, a pair of staff members wearing scrubs collected the body and steered along cinder-block walls. The wheels squeaked all the way to the morgue. Once there, the body was transferred to a rectangular platter and covered with a drab green sheet.

A mechanical lift raised the body to its final stop, and the attendants slid the morgue’s newest resident into a freezer unit.

They closed the door, locked it, and then settled into their routine duties.

Behind the departing attendants, within its stainless steel box, the body of Bailey––Balsa Milutin of Montenegro––lay still. Unmoving.

But on inspection, if one were closely studying the jagged fragments of the gunshot wound, where the blast ripped Bailey’s head from his neck, one might notice the once blood-dewy tatters of skin stretching forth like fingers grasping for a handhold, or flattened sea worms swaying in a deep and remorseless undercurrent.

Slowly stretching.

Elongating.

Thickening.

“Kirk.”

Kirk’s ears perked. A gray dawn filtered in through lowered blinds of Morris’s cabin, slashing the interior in straight razors of shadow and light. The lines rose to just about Morris’s quilt-covered knees.

“Moses.”

Morris didn’t say anything to that, but Kirk sensed the annoyance at being called by his first name.

“Nothing happened last night?” Morris asked, his voice no longer sounding like scorched skin on sandpaper.

Kirk didn’t answer right away. “Nothing.”

Morris sighed. “That’s too bad, then.”

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“Yeah. Sure. Jesus, I haveta piss first.”

With that, Morris shrugged off the quilt with a groan. He rose from his chair, bare assed and none too shy about it. Kirk glanced away with a frown as Morris zombie-shuffled toward the bathroom, his movements herky-jerky, spastic. The new skin covering him was raw, pinkish, as if he’d just emerged from a vigorous Turkish bath.

Kirk looked out the window.

Morris made it to the toilet and offered a short concert of bathroom notes. Kirk cringed at the sporadic bugle blasts and the hiss of an emptying bladder. There were a couple of wet thumps and fleshy squeaks as feet scuffed across floor. Morris returned a few minutes later. A black T-shirt covered his upper body while a wrapped towel concealed his lower half.

“No pants?” Kirk asked.

“Couldn’t be bothered. Besides, my boys got fricasseed something bad. They need all the air they can get.”

“Didn’t need to hear that.”

“Yeah, well, next time don’t ask.”

Morris walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “There were beers in here.”

“I know.”

“Why the hell didn’t you give me a beer then? Instead of water?”

“The beer would only dehydrate you more.”

Morris’s face puckered up in annoyance and Kirk realized with a start of clarity that the usually hairy beast of a man was completely bald all over this morning. Ignoring the Halifax warden, Morris dug into his own beer supply and shuffled back to his chair with two cans in his hand.

“One of them for me?” Kirk asked.

“Get your own.”

“Thanks, Moses. You snore like shit, by the way.”

“And my shit snores on the way out. Funny, ain’t it.”

Morris hissed as he eased himself into his chair. Once he situated himself, he cracked a beer open. He drank heavily, gulping down huge amounts. A mighty belch ripped through the cabin’s interior.

“Goddamn. That was good. That was good.”

“Sounded like it,” Kirk said.

Morris sat and absorbed the beer in his belly, breathing hard and gazing at the ceiling. His T-shirt read
Bad Dog
.

“Thanks for coming,” Morris eventually said and crushed the empty can.

“You’re welcome.”

“Nothing happened last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Shit.”

Kirk let that hang in the air before pursuing it. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, now?”

Morris met the other warden’s eyes and didn’t say a word for seconds. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

Kirk gestured,
Well?

“I think…” Morris swallowed noisily and sniffed, “someone tried to kill me a night ago. A
were
no less. Guy called Bailey.”

That brought Kirk to attention.

“And,” Morris continued, “if that guy didn’t come back around here last night, well, I think he wasn’t able to. You’re going to have to find him. Check on him.”

“Not until you start talking.”

One beer later, Morris did just that. He told Kirk about the weird vibes he got from the
were
called Bailey, how he talked shit one minute and then zeroed in on Morris, like a hunter sizing up the best spot to sink a bullet. He even told him about Borland’s little whispers from beyond the grave, warning him that
They’ll be after ya. One day.
Well, in Morris’s mind Bailey was after him. The warden was certain of it. He described how Bailey stayed close to the cabin leading up to the change, which weirded out Morris enough to change himself and retreat into the forest. Shortly after a hurried transformation, he heard Bailey crash through his picture window.

“Goddamn bastard went right through it,” Morris croaked. “And then he sniffed around the cabin. He was hunting, I tell you. He was hunting. For my ass. And when he couldn’t find it, he turned around and headed back into the bush. Know why?”

Kirk shook his head.

“Because he knew I was waiting for him. Looking to ambush him in the woods. And I was. I knew places to go, where to mask my trail and scent. He knew it, too. Smart fucker, y’see. Instead of following me into the bush where I had the advantage, he turned around and went the other way.”

“And you followed?” Kirk asked.

“Oh fuck yeah I followed. What else could I do? Had to. And he
knew
I would. Lunatic like that running around the woods? No hesitation. Stalked him two or three kilometers to the southeast, to a place called Claymore Lake. Big weekend spot. The Halifax crowd drives up there on the weekends. And guess what? He picked out a cabin like this one and ripped the sorry bastards into pieces. I mean, he gutted them, chowed down on lips and assholes. I don’t know how many exactly.”

Kirk placed a hand to his forehead as if checking for a temperature. “Why?”

“Because he knew I was out there,” Morris said without emotion. “He knew I was close and he needed something to draw me out. Those people he killed? They were bait. All bait. And I bit. I bit big time. I knew he’d nailed at least two or three guys, maybe more. I knew he’d broken the law. And when I showed up to the party, he was ready and waiting.”

Morris relaxed, the memory summoning an expression of distaste. “He was waiting. The cabin was on fire, lighting up that whole part of the lake. We found each other easy enough and went straight for the throat. He was strong, too. Way stronger than he looked. And fast. And… and smart. At one point I thought I had him and went for the throat, but he fucking twisted on his back and slingshot me into the cabin. Yeah, that’s right, the cabin that was on fire. And Dougie? All the stories are true. You do
not
want your ass on fire. I went up like fireworks doused in gasoline. Everything was burning—my body, head, everything. Couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t breathe. Sure as shit couldn’t
think
. I was a flame, a living, racing jet of flame. That cabin was on a lake. A lake. Water was maybe twenty, thirty feet away. Guess which direction I went? Wait, I’ll tell you. I think I slammed into something and totally fucked up my sense of direction, which was pretty much a guess anyway, and charged
away
from the water. Straight into the woods, leaving a trail of smoke and crashing into every fuckin’ tree between there and creation. Felt like I was bashing my way through an army of defensive linesmen. And as I was running away, I heard… I
think
I heard…”

Kirk waited, holding his breath.

“Gunshots.”

“Gunshots?” Kirk repeated.

“Yeah. Pop-pop-pop. I
think
. I’m not one hundred percent sure. I was
this
close,” Morris pinched his finger and thumb together, “to being a roadhouse steak at the time. And every fucking tree in the forest was ringing my dinner bell. Then the miracle. I hit water. Pure luck. I splashed into a creek and that’s where I doused the fire. Literally wasn’t out of the woods though, and every part of me was smoldering. Didn’t think about Bailey. If he could’ve, he would’ve finished me off. I had nothing left. But he wasn’t around as far as I could detect, and my eyes and smell weren’t workin’ so good, so I crawled back here. Got back by dawn. Slunk into the house, planted myself in the chair here and promptly passed out. When I came to, I called you.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut, absorbing the glut of information, attempting to sift through the details.

“He didn’t come back here,” Morris continued, “which means he couldn’t. Which means I might’ve heard gunshots, which means who the hell knows what that crazy fucker might’ve gotten himself into. That’s where you come in. You need to head over to Claymore Lake and see what went down after I left.”

“Why would he want you dead?”

“Why do flying squirrels try to fuck birds? I don’t know.”

But Morris quieted and chewed on the inside corner of his mouth, deep thoughts taking him for a ride. “You remember what Borland said to us? Just before we killed him?”

That shut Kirk up fast. He remembered. Of course he did. “Yeah.”

“I do, too. And I’ve been thinking about that in the wee hours, when I’ve been conscious that is, and not simmering over a low heat.”

“And?”

“You remember the conversation we had, back in Newfoundland? After we called the elders and reported in? Remember how weird they got? Especially when…”

Kirk nodded pensively.

“Well, this is what I think, subject to change if you have a better idea. I think that… when we ate Borland––”

“You ate Borland,” Kirk interrupted. “I ate the breeds.”

“Still a
were
.”

“Just getting things straight.”

“So what are you sayin’?”

Kirk shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the cannibal.”

That put a scowl on Morris’s healing face. “The fuck you mean by that?”

“I just said it.”

“Hey, I did what I had to do.”

“Oh, you did,” Kirk acknowledged. “You chowed down on Borland’s dead ass.”

“
You
chowed down on a bunch of them dogs.”

“That’s different.”

“Are you fucking kiddin’ me?” Morris leered in shock. “See, it’s not different. Not in the least. You’re healing just as fast as I am these days. Your leg. Your ears. I don’t remember what else that last dog did to you but it wasn’t fuckin’ pretty. Yet here you are. Walkin’, talkin’ and with skin smoother than a baby’s ass.”

Kirk had nothing to say to that. It was all true. “The dogs had the juice in them,” he finally admitted. “The gift, the curse, whatever you wanna call it. And I ate them. So whatever was in the dogs is now in me. We had this conversation back on the island.”

“Yeah, we did. We supped at the same table.”

“And didn’t you eat one of the dogs, too?” Kirk asked.

Morris quieted. “Only one.”

“Yeah, that’s what I remembered.” Kirk let it go. “So that’s it, then. We’re healing faster than normal. And better.”

“Apparently. You got any aches or scars from the silver?”

Kirk lifted the front of his fisherman’s sweater and clawed at the T-shirt underneath to show off his lean chest. There was nothing showing of the grisly wound he’d sustained in his fight with Borland.

Morris matched him by stretching out the neck of his T-shirt and revealing his shoulder where a silver knife had impaled him. The skin was smooth. Seamless.

“So we’re healing faster,” Kirk established. “We already knew that.”

“And better,” Morris added.

“And better. No scars or silver aches.”

The Pictou warden shook his head.

“Because we ate the
weres
.”

“Yeah. Guilty as charged.”

“And because of that…” Kirk began.

“The elders are watching us. Worse, they’re sending bastards to kill us.”

“We don’t know that,” Kirk waved that thought away. “Bailey could’ve been just crazy.”

“Like Borland?”

“All right,” Kirk said. “So what if they are sending
weres
after you? For what? I still don’t understand why. We
healed
faster. That’s all. Different meat, is all. Different effect. Is that reason to take out a warden? Doesn’t make sense.”

“To take out wardens,” Morris corrected darkly. “Both of us. I think once Bailey was done with me, he was going after you.”

That halted Kirk’s thinking. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they’re worried about us going crazy. Like Borland.”

“Borland was just old. We’re… not. It’s all just too weird. Insane.”

“No, it isn’t,” Morris agreed. “But one thing’s crystal. Bailey was out to bag me. Exact reason is a little fudgy, other than what we ate on the island, but maybe we’ll think it out. I’m thinking it’s our one-time diet and the results. If that ain’t strange enough for you, then I don’t know what is. Borland did something to those dogs, that’s a given, and maybe that something is in us. Permanently. Or worse.”