Hair, Greg - Werewolf 01 (5 page)

6

Even in human form, they were capable of speeds above the fastest recorded human, which was how he was always able to avoid being caught in the nude. They darted out of the park and into his still-open apartment door, Landon closing it behind him. He gave her a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt as he came out of his bedroom wearing the same thing.

“So, you’re a werewolf,” he said.

“Yes. I’m a monster. Just like you,” she responded.

“What was that all about tonight?”

“I thought I just told you,” she quipped.

“Yeah, you said you’re a monster. Is that how you see yourself?”

“Don’t you?”

He paused.

“I used to. I guess sometimes I still do. It depends on what kind of day I’m having.”

“What kind of day are you having today?”

“A long, strange one. I’d rather talk about you, though. How long have you been a werewolf?”

“About three months. I don’t remember the attack itself. I was living with my family in Cincinnati and drove outside the city one night, when a large animal ran across the road, sending me into a ditch. I got out to check the damage when I heard something in the trees. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. They said that I had deep lacerations to my shoulder and lost a lot of blood, but when they removed the bandages to clean the wound, there wasn’t a mark on me.”

“So you met Scott in Cincy.”

“No,” she said. “It took about a month to realize what had happened. For a while, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even my little sister, who was my best friend. I was living on my own, and since my family has a lot of money, my dad was helping me with bills while I was looking for job right after grad school. Besides, he owed me.”

Landon wanted to ask what she meant by that last statement, feeling there was something more because of the distance in her eyes, but she kept going.

“Suddenly, I became an embarrassment to them because of the psychological damage. They said it was all in my head and that I was putting them out with my depression. Then, the morning after my first change, I woke up covered in blood, the neighbor’s dead dogs lying beside me, and the neighbors themselves, along with my parents, standing over me, appalled. My dad wouldn’t talk to me after that, so I left town.

“I’d been to Louisville before, so I hitched a ride and ended up on the street. I met several dealers who would get me whatever I wanted, so I took it. When I spent a night at Wayside, I met a woman who offered to help. She drove me to rehab, and that’s where I met Scott. He was there for alcoholism. He said he abused his girlfriends when he drank. I haven’t seen my family since I left.”

“So why go out with him? Why live with him? It doesn’t make sense,” said Landon, picking up on a sense of guilt when talking about her family, though he felt it more important to understand why she was with Scott.

“Yes, it does. I wanted to die and couldn’t do it myself. I already tried. A gun, hanging, drowning. The only thing I haven’t tried is falling from a great height, but I’m afraid of heights. So I can’t even get high enough to kill myself. Go figure. I was hoping that maybe if I lived with him, drove him to drink, and pushed all the right buttons, he’d find a way to kill me. I don’t want to be a monster. Maybe you like it, but I don’t.”

“I’ve found a way to use it, to channel it for something good, bringing something positive out of it.”

“And how’s that?” she asked.

“I dispense justice.”

“In what way?”

He paused, thinking carefully how he would phrase his answer.

“I save lives by getting rid of the criminal element.”

“Meaning what? Quit dancing around it and just tell me what you do,” she demanded.

“I bring judgment to those who escape justice. At least, justice in this world. After seeing the things that I’ve seen, I hope there’s a Hell.”

“You murder,” she said coldly.

Landon furrowed his brow, and poured a drink. “I save lives,” he said in a lower tone.

“How do you save lives by committing murder?”

“Just tonight, I took a pedophile and gang of kidnappers off the streets. How is that not saving lives?”

“So you’re judge, jury, and executioner. Nice,” she said sarcastically. “And just how was it that you came upon this higher calling?”

“It was my first change,” he answered, moving into his story.

In the fall of ‘95, Landon sat in his history class at the University of Louisville. He came to the conclusion a while back that he wanted to get his life on track. He enrolled in a couple of night classes to start slowly, not taking on too much. His day job as a teaching assistant with the local school system was helping to pay the bills in the tiny one-bedroom apartment on Eastern Parkway beside Cherokee Park. He had no idea that tonight would change his life, and the lives of many others, forever.

The warm August air encapsulated the evening as Landon walked home, glancing through the week’s assigned reading in his history textbook. Crossing the street that ran parallel with the Natural Science Building, he noticed several people waiting at the bus stop.

One particular individual who caught his eye was a young redhead, probably in her late teens, sitting on the bench reading a book about William Shakespeare. He’d seen her before, with her shoulder-length hair and brown eyes, entering the Humanities Building, but never had the nerve to approach her, nor did he now. With his back to Third Street and moving beyond the bus stop, he left her behind.

It wasn’t that he didn’t usually take the bus home; his apartment was located at the opposite end of Eastern Parkway, quite a distance walking, but sometimes he just liked to walk to the next stop. It gave him time to think. With the sun melting into the western horizon, the bus rolled past with the young redhead on board.

Catching the next bus a few stops down from the student depot, Landon stood in the aisle steadying himself as he prepared to exit near the statue that guarded the entrance to Cherokee Park. His apartment lay just up on the left side of the parkway as one faced the statue, his stop directly across the street. He was nearly home when the faint cries of a woman flowed out of the tree-lined perimeter of the park and moved through the darkness, enveloping him.

He turned his head from side to side, facing the park, attempting to peer through the not quite translucent curtain of trees and get a point of reference for the commotion when another voice called to him from an even greater distance.

Walk away. Run if you have to. Do you understand me? You do not fight.

His father’s words echoed across time from so many years ago. He hadn’t thought about Allen’s cowardly advice in a long time, but now it came back to him, like a warning shot across the bow of a ship. Landon had a perfect track record of never having been in a fight, and perhaps now was not the time to damage that streak.
Then again
, he thought,
it was my father’s advice. What the
hell did he know? People always backed down from a fight with
him, yet he wanted me to run. And he knew how to do that just
fine in the end.
Landon moved toward the park.

He didn’t have far to go. At the bottom of a large, steep hill known by locals as a great spot for sledding in the winter, he found what he was looking for, but hoped he wouldn’t find. Three large men had cornered their prey among a thicket of trees.
Three
, he thought.
This is
going to be my first and last fight
. Drawing nearer, moving through the trees and using the darkness to hide his approach, he noticed something familiar—the redhead from school.

He looked around for something to use as a weapon, but all he could find were sticks too small to defend against a Chihuahua and branches too heavy to pick up.

Walk away
, came his father’s voice again.

Finally, ignoring the voice in his head and steeling himself as much as he was able, Landon emerged from the shadows into the clearing, standing approximately fifteen yards from the scene.

I warned you
, Allen’s ghost said one last time.

“Hey, you better get outta here. The cops are on their way,” he said, doing his best to hide the trembling in his voice.

The three men turned in his direction, one pausing his previous motion of removing his jeans. The girl lay on the ground, her green, short- sleeved shirt lying shredded beside her as she criss-crossed her bra with her arms.

The largest man spoke up. “This
was
a private party,” he said through his beard. “And I don’t think the cops are coming at all. But now that you’re here, you might as well stay.”

“Let the girl go and you can do what you want with me.” Landon wasn’t Catholic, but he did his best to say to himself his Our Fathers and Hail Marys.

“Oh, I think we’ll keep the girl
and
do what we want with you. Tony?” said the large man, glancing to the one with his pants half off. “Get ‘er warmed up for us. We’ll be right back.”

The two men walked slowly toward Landon, each moving farther apart from the other in a flanking formation. The girl screamed as Tony, saliva falling from his mouth, finished removing his clothes and began forcing himself on her. Landon had little time to think and even less time to react. He lunged forward into the space between the two approaching men, racing toward Tony. The smaller of the two men grabbed Landon’s shirt from behind and, pulling back, brought the would-be rescuer to the ground. The large bearded man ran over and kicked him in the right side, the sound of the breaking ribs emanating from within as the pain forced its way through Landon’s upper body and out into the open air in a loud cry.

Landon glanced over to see the red-haired woman, who only a while ago sat at the bus stop reading about the life and times of William Shakespeare, being raped, her attacker smiling and laughing as his hand cupped her mouth, muffling her screams. He could see the tears that ran down her battered face, mixing with the blood that formed a red pool in the green grass beside her head.

In a flash the scene was cut from his eyes as a boot landed in a swift motion directly on his face. Then the real pain began.

“My hand. My arms,” he screamed, as the tormenting agony of every bone in his limbs cracking, breaking, shifting, and stretching under his steaming skin began. Only a moment before, one could still hear the sounds of birds flying from tree to tree and squirrels dashing about through fallen leaves. Now, even the wildlife stopped.

“Man, we haven’t even gotten to your damn arms yet, but we’re gettin’ there,” he heard as he felt the dull pain of a cold knife pierce his flesh just above his groin. He considered the stabbing dull and barely felt the incision compared to what was happening to the rest of his body.

His body convulsed as his skin ripped and pulled apart, his entire body so hot, he felt as if he were burning alive. His screams began to ring out and move like a wave over the surrounding area. If anyone was coming to provide help, he or she surely turned around now.

He hadn’t realized it in his throes at the time, but looking back, he remembered that no more blows had fallen. The sounds of the rape ceased. The men just stood around him, half in terror and half in curiosity. The girl looked at him, dully watching her would-be hero bend and writhe through blood-washed eyes.

Then the last human scream formed deep inside him, and as it reverberated through the air, it changed pitch and tone, becoming a low growl that forced itself upon the ears and spines of every living being that walked or crawled within a quarter-mile radius. At last they could see the creature that was being birthed, its massive fur-covered body beginning to stand erect, turn, and look at them, its burning red eyes and glimmering teeth visible in the cloudy, moonless night.

The thing just stood there, looking at the men. Then it seemed to look past them, to the body lying in the red grass. It saw and smelled the yellow urine that ran down Tony’s leg.

Suddenly, as if the beast understood what took place before its arrival, it leaped effortlessly across the fifteen-yard span to Tony, landing on the rapist and tearing through his chest. Then it turned in the direction of the smaller of the other two men, running toward him as the man rotated to flee, catching him by the flesh of his back and pulling the man toward itself. It ripped its claw through to his spine. The body collapsed to the ground.

The large man knelt, shaking and weeping as the thing walked slowly yet gracefully toward him. It stopped ten feet from him and stared, its eyes locked on his.

“Please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my idea. Please, oh God, please…have mercy.”

Both arms of the beast stretched out, its massive claws grabbing the man’s shoulders, jerking him toward its huge body, ripping through the defenseless prey’s neck with its powerful jaws. The man’s head no longer perched atop the neck, but now dangled by scattered strands of skin.

Walking over to the woman, it stared at her unconscious body. It bent down and looked at her as if it knew her, like it recognized her. She was breathing, though laboriously. Reaching out, it brushed the topside of one of its claws against her leg, resulting in a deep moan from the object of its curiosity.