Hair, Greg - Werewolf 01 (4 page)
As Landon crossed Broadway, a speeding car came out of nowhere, hitting him, and he felt multiple bones in his body break as he was ejected out of his shoes. The driver that struck him rolled down his window and shot Landon twice while he lay in the street. Any bystanders who were approaching quickly took cover. The long, black Towncar backed off the sidewalk and took a right, narrowly missing the blood-covered man lying in the path.
As they watched the one taillight shrink in the distance, a few witnesses ventured toward the victim. Approaching, they watched in amazement as the man, who only seconds before had been lying in a pool of blood, stood and began limping in the direction of the fleeing vehicle.
“Hey, man, you all right?” a large, bearded man asked, attempting to offer some sort of physical assistance. “You can’t just get up and walk off. You gotta sit down. You’ve lost a lot of blood. The ambulance is on its way. Hey, man, sit down.”
Landon’s eyes flashed red as he turned his head and faced his Good Samaritan. The gentleman backed away, motioning to the others to stay back.
The crowd would later state to police that, as the man made his way into the city’s shadows, those within earshot could hear a loud howl. Then, seconds later, a large creature emerged, climbing the side of the nearest building. Once at the top, he headed west, jumping from rooftop to rooftop with incredible speed and agility. At that point, the theories from those present to witness would later vary as to exactly what came out from the alleyway. They all agreed, however, that whatever it was, was in pursuit. And God help whomever it caught.
Over downtown Landon raced, splashing through the rainwater that had collected on the rooftops above and quickly catching sight of the car that fled the scene. The vehicle was moving fast, but Landon was catching up. He inhaled and exhaled, his large muscles expanding and contracting, all with little exertion. Within seconds, he was right above the car and exploded from the top of the nearest building, crashing onto the vehicle’s roof, slicing through the metal like water and caving it to the point that the driver began to be compacted and had to pull over.
As the shooter exited, he ran away from the car, and twisted as he ran in an effort to spray the beast with bullets. The projectiles would have had little effect even if they had hit their intended target.
A second later, the man lay dying on Broadway, only moments of life left in him. Landon reverted to human form.
“Why?” he growled, his hand around the man’s neck.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You killed everyone in the house, all my friends. But you didn’t see me sitting in the car across the street, did ya?”
“You and your friends made money kidnapping children. Your operation is over. And so is your life.” Landon’s claws extended through the man’s neck, and retracted. The man was dead, and Landon disappeared.
When Landon returned home, the shouting from the upstairs apartment was already at a fever pitch, only now it was worse than before. The door to the couple’s home was open, and glass lay strewn all over the sidewalk. Landon tried desperately to ignore what was happening, but once he heard Scott threatening to kill LillyAnna, he couldn’t stand by any longer.
Racing upstairs, he found Scott standing over a battered LillyAnna, waving a knife in her face, beer bottles lying about the living room.
“Go ahead, do it! Kill me if you’ve got the guts!” she screamed.
“Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think for a minute that I’m scared.”
“Then stop threatening to do it and do it!” she screamed. “You don’t have the guts. You’re no man.”
Landon jumped over LillyAnna, placing himself between her and the knife.
“Scott!” he yelled. “Scott! Drop the knife and walk outta here. You’ve been drinking. Remember how you get when you’ve been drinking? You need to walk away.”
“Walk away? I’ve done nothing but walk away. She’s done nothing but push. You’ve heard her. She’s always starting fights, throwing crap, hitting me. She’s driven me to this. She’s driven me to drink again. What am I supposed to do, just take it? She won’t stop. I’ve begged her to, but she won’t. You’re the one that needs to get out, Landon.”
“Yeah, go on, leave,” LillyAnna demanded. “I can handle this.”
“Would you shut up?” Landon said to LillyAnna. “You’re not helping the situation.”
“No, you’re not helping,” she responded.
“Scott, remember what you said about her earlier: that you loved her,” said Landon, returning his attention to the attacker. “She keeps you grounded. Don’t do this. Put down the knife and go outside. You don’t want this to escalate any further, trust me.”
Scott looked at Landon, then down at LillyAnna. He looked around at the bottles that littered the apartment. Still holding the knife, he stepped slowly around them and lumbered toward the door. As he exited, she pushed one last time.
“Coward,” she called.
Scott spun around, lunging at her, the knife pointed directly at her chest. Landon held up his right hand in front of the blade as it came down, ripping through his skin. He winced in pain as his left hand mutated and, with his claw extended, tore through Scott’s shirt, leaving four bleeding scratches.
Scott turned and ran outside with Landon in pursuit. LillyAnna followed closely. The three rushed into the shadows of the apartment complex’s tree-lined sidewalk. Scott quickly emerged, running as swiftly as his inebriated legs could carry him. Landon gave chase for a distance, then stopped, letting Scott go and heading back for LillyAnna.
Turning back around, he noticed LillyAnna still standing in the shadows of the trees, watching his every move. All he could see were her eyes, now made more prominent by the darkness that fell over every other inch of her body while the moonlight seemed to make them sparkle. He also noticed something else about her eyes—the anger. He made his way toward the shadows, then stopped when he saw her eyes close slightly and focus on him.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He could hear her breathing heavily. Then the sound of branches breaking.
Landon jumped back in surprise as the young woman, hidden by the darkness of the trees, stepped out, revealing the wolf within.
Landon marveled at the sight of LillyAnna as a female counterpart to his inner self. Her long brown fur bristled in the cold December wind, and her eyes burned like twin red suns. She stood about seven feet tall, half the height of the flanking trees. The last thing he expected the battered girlfriend of the upstairs alcoholic to be was a werewolf.
LillyAnna wasn’t the only other werewolf with whom he had come into contact, male or female, but she was the most beautiful. The long brown fur draped over her body and shuffled in the cold, December wind.
She edged closer to him, emitting a higher-pitched growl. He could see she was agitated. Taking a few steps back, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Now, wait a minute, LillyAnna,” he said, knowing she understood every word. “I was only trying to help. He was up there holding a knife, and it looked like he was going to kill you. Though I have to admit, seeing what I’m seeing now, I haven’t quite put the pieces together yet.”
She moved closer in a threatening manner. He continued to plead his case.
“I didn’t know this was the situation. Why don’t you change back, and we’ll talk.”
LillyAnna made her move, striking him in the face with her right claw, pushing him backwards onto the ground.
“Whoa, that’s enough. I said we could talk. You don’t need to do this. It’s already been a bad day,” he pleaded.
Lunging, she landed over him on all fours as he lay on his back. LillyAnna bent her head down, screaming in his face and raising her right claw again, preparing to take another swipe.
“Here we go,” he said, immediately changing shape, using his massive arm muscles to throw her off. She flew back, hitting a tree, cracking it at the base. The reddish male werewolf stood, facing the smaller brown female.
LillyAnna cautiously took a step back, turned, and ran down the street toward a small wooded park. Landon followed.
She entered the park, disappearing into the nearby woods, the leafless trees creating a forest of shadows when struck by the moonlight. Landon stopped just outside the tree line. He knew she was lying in wait for him. He raised his head, smelling the air, analyzing all the scents contained therein.
Gotcha
. He lowered himself to walk on all four limbs, proceeding slowly.
The leaves on the ground rustled in the wind. The nearby stream trickled as it fell and rose along the creek bed. The only other noise was the low breathing of a large werewolf that, for some reason, he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Landon searched the premises, finding no tangible evidence, only the intangible smell of her trail. He suddenly realized that he’d been looking only in the most obvious of places, the ground.
As he looked up, LillyAnna burst from the top of the trees, pouncing on Landon, forcing him backward into the brush. He rose swiftly, only to be knocked through the air from behind by a charging LillyAnna, her claws reaching into his body and pushing him with extreme energy. Over the ground he flew, the shadow of his broken body gliding beneath him. Midway through his flight, he shifted back to his human form, healing any damage, and changing back again, he landed as a werewolf, fully recovered.
He’d been taught a few years back that any damage accrued in one form could be instantly repaired by shifting to the other due to the change in a werewolf’s structure and chemistry. Any injuries sustained in the previous body wouldn’t remain as the bones and flesh broke, swelled, ripped, shifted, grew, and shrank. The mid-air double change was one of his personal tricks.
LillyAnna turned, running in the opposite direction, toward the creek, springing over the water. Landon pursued. He followed her zigzagging scent through the park, at times getting close to the road, where cars were passing. He followed the trail up the trees, jumping from branch to branch like a flying squirrel. Many of the branches broke under his weight as he propelled himself through the air.
Finally, he stopped when he came to a small, old cemetery that sat within the park. A low brick wall surrounded the site with a locked gate guarding the entrance. Most of the graves were from the1800s, some of the headstones having been vandalized. He had no desire to tread upon sacred ground, though the scent ended here. LillyAnna, however, had other plans.
She shot from behind, both werewolves tumbling over the cemetery wall. Caught off guard, Landon was the second to rise. She immediately knocked him back into one of the few still-standing monuments, which now stood no longer, his body breaking the statue in half as it toppled over him. Landon, regardless of his beliefs in himself or the human population as whole, still retained certain spiritual beliefs. He revered the dead and considered burial grounds holy places. Now she had gone too far.
He burst from the broken marker, bounding toward her on all fours. She expected him to charge at her from the ground and reacted as such, swiping at him with her right claw, but she had miscalculated. He launched into the air, flying overhead and digging into her shoulders with his rear claws, brought her back over the wall with him. He landed in a forward rolling position, propelling her upside-down through the air until she came to rest against a tree, nearly knocking it down. Stunned, LillyAnna struggled to get up, only managing to roll a few feet away.
LillyAnna watched in amazement as her opponent suddenly raised the stakes and sprang forward at her, bearing his arsenal of teeth with a
don’t mess with me
roar. She quickly lay on the ground in a submissive position, yet still growling, trying to goad him into finishing the task. It was as if she were telling him to go ahead and do it, kill her, like she had with Scott.
Landon bent his snout down to hers, growling. His burning red eyes locked onto hers. LillyAnna trembled. This wasn’t the act of a male werewolf claiming dominance over a female; it was the winner claiming victory over the defeated. He could see that she wanted him to finish her off, and it was clear that he had no intention in doing so. They had reached a stalemate.
LillyAnna was first to switch back to human form, rising from her prostrated position. Landon followed suit a moment later, and both stood naked in the night shade of the wooded park. The low light of the moon reflected off their bodies as they stood quivering. The cold had nothing to do with the shivering; it was the adrenaline that remained from the fight.
She was a beautiful creature in every aspect. Her short, slim, tan 5’5” frame was beguiling, and her brown eyes sang to him like the sirens in Homer’s
Odyssey
. Her slightly open mouth and full lips called to him in strange and unusual ways, beckoning him to come closer. He swayed forward in her direction ever so slightly, then pulled himself back to an erect position. He felt intoxicated by the mix of her vanilla perfume, which he could tell she always wore, and her natural pheromones. He could see the hairs on her arms standing on end, sensing the electrical charge each body was producing, the skin of each werewolf conduit sending and receiving various messages that only their subconscious could interpret.
Finally, Landon awoke from his daze. “We need to talk. Come with me. Quickly.”
She nodded and followed.