Rules for Werewolves (32 page)

—Well, there’s plenty of evidence—handprints on the door. Pretty small. How old is this kid?

—You’ll have to ask the detective. He knew who they were.

—EMS is on the way. Can you hear me, detective? EMS is on the way! Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there.

—I don’t know that he’s conscious.

—Oh, Jesus, Ellie. How bad is he hurt?

—He’ll be all right. He’s bleeding. But he hasn’t been shot or stabbed or anything. The young man just gave him an old fashioned beating.

—What for?

—I guess the young man didn’t like the detective’s tone of voice, John.

—So he flipped over the dining room table and broke your dishes?

—The detective was condescending.

—What’s that?

—He was talking down to the young man.

—Kinda like the way you’re talking to me, Ellie?

—You were supposed to come, John. Not some impolite detective.

—He said he knew these boys. He talked big about how he knew how to handle ’em. And he sure did treat me like shit for letting the whole tent city get away three weeks ago.

—Well, now he’s cuffed to the rod in my closet.

—I could kick the door down.

—I think that would set the shotgun off.

—How has he got it rigged?

—I have no idea, John.

—What happened?

—We were sitting here. The detective had already arrested the little one and taken him out to his car behind the barn—

—We should go get him.

—Let me finish. The young men are gone. If you let me finish, you’d know that.

—You want me to get you a warm rag or anything to wipe the blood off you?

—That’d be nice.

—Where are your towels?

—I don’t know where the kitchen rag is. You’ll have to get a towel from the bathroom upstairs.

—Go on. I’m listening.

—We were waiting for the older one to come home. And he did. He didn’t knock on the door or make any kind of announcement. The young man simply walked in and went straight up to the detective. The young man knew what was going on. The detective started talking, and the young man just stuck his hands out in front on him about waist-high, his hands in fists, as if to say, “Shut up and put the handcuffs on me.” The young man didn’t look right. But then I don’t know what a young man who’s being arrested is supposed to look like—

—Here you go, Ellie.

—Not the good yellow towels, John. Although I’m glad to see they’re still clean. There should be a wet gray towel on the back of the door.

—There’s blood on the lampshade, too. It musta been a hell of a beating.

—The detective cuffed one of the young man’s wrists, and then it happened so fast. That was what the young man was waiting for. As soon as that cuff was on one of his wrists, the young man started swinging that hand around, using the handcuff as a whip. He drew blood immediately. He hit the detective in the face. Maybe the eyes. Around the eyes. He drew blood and the detective couldn’t see what was happening and I don’t know that it would have mattered. The young man wasn’t fighting the detective, he was attacking. Screaming. Flailing. Biting. Smashing everything. At one point the young man picked the detective up by the neck and threw him. He was so angry he didn’t know what was possible and what was not. He whipped the detective to ribbons with his own handcuffs. When the detective covered his face, the boy kicked him in the stomach. When the detective protected his body, the boy hit him in the face.

—What did you do?

—Everything I just described happened in five seconds. I stood there.

—The boy didn’t attack you?

—He never lifted a hand to me.

—But you’re covered in blood.

—It was a hell of a beating.

—The kid picked him up by the neck?

—He went wild.

—All right, Ellie.

—Don’t open the door.

—I don’t think a wild child is gonna rig up a shotgun trap. I think you’re lying to me, Ellie. I could be wrong. But I’m going to risk it.

—I wish you wouldn’t.

—Oh, Jesus, Ellie.

—I told you. The young man beat him to ribbons. But he’ll live.

—How do you know?

—Trust me. I’ve seen worse.

—And you watched this happen.

—To tell you the truth, John, I rooted for it.

—And then you stalled for time. You waited while this detective was bleeding like this. You waited for me to finally get bored out on the road and come wandering in to find out what was going on.

—I did more than wait.

—You probably spent a good hour making up what you were gonna tell me.

—Everything I told you about the young man was true.

—Except using the shotgun to booby-trap the closet. You probably gave it to the boy as a parting gift.

—I did.

—You know I am called on to do some detective work of my own, from time to time, Ellie.

—I know that.

—Don’t treat me like a complete idiot.

—I’m sorry. Everything I told you about the attack was true.

—And then, after the boy left, you dragged the detective to this closet. That’s how you got so bloody.

—You can believe what you want, John.

—What I believe, Ellie, is that the handprint on the door is too small to pick this detective up by the neck. I believe the boy beat up the detective
and then you dragged the detective into the closet and hung him up by the wrist, with his own cuffs, to the closet rod.

—You can believe what you want.

—Jesus, Ellie. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! That’s your kitchen rag in his mouth.

—I want the young men to be free.

—Then why did you call me in the first place?

—I called
you
. Not this asshole.

—All right. Where are the keys?

—The young man took ’em to set his brother free.

—All right. I’m gonna pull the rod out and let him down. Then I’m gonna take the dish towel out his mouth, and I want you to use it to smear out your handprints on the other side of the door.

—All right, John.

—Jesus, Ellie. You’re one step away from living the rest of your life in jail. You know that? It’s a good thing it’s me standing here before you.

—That’s why I called you.

—Oh, no, you don’t. Keep walking. We’re getting away. I’m not gonna let whatever you had to go through go to waste ’cause you got tired. Put your arm around me. Don’t fucking fight me. Sorry. Don’t fight me. I can change, too. I’m helping you. You helped me. I’m gonna help you. We’re gonna walk into these woods until they never find us. They’re gonna have helicopters with searchlights looking for us soon. So we have to go farther than they think we could possibly go. We have to be outside their search radiuses or whatever. They’re gonna draw a circle on a map and everything inside that circle is what they believe we’re capable of. But you’re outside that circle. Aren’t you? And they’re gonna have dogs that can find us by smell. So we have to wash in the next pond we come across. I might make you wash in every pond we come across. I might make you rub sage all over your body. So don’t tire yourself out trying to fight me now, when I’m just trying to hold you up and keep you walking. You’re gonna wanna save some fight for when I’m holding you down trying to change your smell. They have dogs that can get a perfect image of us from a shit we took last week. Think about that for a while. What item that you left behind at home most smells like you? I think if they were smart they would give the dogs my pillow. It’s got sweat on it. And drool. And little bits of skin and hair. But they’ll probably dig up my gym shorts or something. And for you, they’ll probably dig up your old baseball glove. That’s got five or
six years of sweat. Remember when you used to play ball? Remember that? Dad played with you, didn’t he? All right. Now you’re walking a little better. Maybe that’s who they should dig up. Give the dogs a little bit of Dad’s smell and a little bit of Mom’s smell and I bet those dogs could mix them together perfect into you and me. Step bigger now, we’re starting to head uphill. I don’t want you to trip. I bet you’re trying to fall down. You think if you fall down in this cedar and brush it’ll feel like a bed. You think if you fall down I’ll let you lay there and sleep. You’ve got used to our schedule of sleeping through the day, but we’re gonna keep walking. And if you fall down, I’m just gonna pick you up and carry you. So if you don’t wanna do that to your little brother, then step bigger. We’re going up this hill and we’re staying in the thick part under the trees the whole time. No walking out in the open. And we’re looking for a pond. We gotta clean you up. We gotta clean up that wrist. Your whole wrist is cut up. Looks like you were trying to commit suicide. I don’t know what you did to get that wrist so cut up. But I got a good idea what you did to get your knuckles so cut open. You must have been something to see. Punching out cops on all sides. Just beating the living shit out of every one of ’em who was comin’ for us. When I saw you coming back to the cop car where I was, I thought you were a monster. The way you were walking. You were stumbling and I thought you were drunk. You were covered in blood. And then when I could see your face—I was terrified. You looked fucked up. I wish I had a camera. You don’t know how different you looked. The only people who’ll ever know how fucked up you looked are the ones who saw you coming at ’em. Shit. Sorry. I bet you were amazing. Going after cop after cop, looking for the keys to the car where I was. You’re lucky you didn’t get shot. Or Maced or Tased or clubbed. Maybe you did. You must have been amazing. Big steps now. Good. Shhh. Hold on a second. Listen. Listen. Wait. Listen. It’s nothing. You’re lucky you didn’t get Maced or Tased, huh? Although, how do I know? Huh? When we get to a pond or something like that, I’m gonna hafta undress you and give you a good going over. I need to make sure you don’t have some sort of gunshot or stab or—what kind of marks do Tasers leave? Probably a couple of little burn marks like a little electric Dracula has been after you. Are you having trouble breathing? I’ll slow down a little and you can try to catch your breath. But we’re not stopping. Shhh. What was that? I thought I heard
a dog. If we get caught by a bunch of dogs, that would just be too much, wouldn’t it? Keep walking. It’s starting to get light. Everything is going all black and white. It’s a step up from everything being pitch-black. There’s no moon anywhere, so I guess you’re the kind of werewolf that changes in the dark. Maybe some werewolves are shy. That sounds like you. How long does it last? When are you gonna come back to me, Robert? I can’t tell if you can’t talk because of the change, or because you’re hurt. Or because of what you had to do. You didn’t kill anybody, did you, Robert? I don’t care if you did, but if you did they’ll keep looking for us forever. But if you didn’t, then they probably just have to make a good show of it and then they can blame the cops who let you go. They probably won’t admit to being beat by just one kid. They’ll probably throw in the whole pack of your friends to excuse their mistake. I’ll probably get into the story. They’ll probably put me in the fight to explain how we could overpower ’em. They’ll say they were dealing with you and I snuck up behind them and started swinging a baseball bat. They’ll never admit I was sitting in the backseat of a car waiting for you. Hoping you would come back. I mean, I knew you were gonna come back for me. Just like when you ran away. But I want you to do me one more favor. I want you to come back to me one more time. Come on, Robert. Please? Don’t die on me. Don’t be hurt bad. Keep walking. And don’t stay like this. There’s no point in changing if you can’t change back. Come on. Come on. Wait. Shhh. There’s someone following us. Like a dog or something. I can hear it every once in a while. Hold on.

—All right, Robert. You sit there. With your back against these rocks. I’m gonna take this stick and when that dog comes through that clearing, I’m going to kill it.

—Wait.

—What? Are you all right?

—Wait.

—I’m waiting. What? What do you want me to do?

—Put down the stick.

—No. You wouldn’t. The dog is coming. And I’m not leaving you here.

—Wait. Let me talk.

—The dog is coming. It’s right there.

—Put down the stick!

—Why?

—I know that dog.

—That’s gross.

—You wouldn’t say that if you were a dog.

—I’m just glad that almost none of it’s your blood.

—Just around the wrist.

—Are you gonna be all right?

—Now that my dog is here.

—What’s his name?

—He doesn’t have one. Or if he does, he hasn’t told me yet.

—You didn’t name him?

—He has his own name. He doesn’t need one that I make up.

—You think they left him behind when the old lady called the cops on them and they had to scramble.

—I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?

—Oh, he talks now, too?

—If you listen right.

—What are we gonna do?

—I’m gonna sleep.

—Don’t you think they’re looking for us? Don’t you think we should keep walking?

—Let’s vote. I vote sleep.

—I vote we keep walking. Just one more day.

—What about you, dog? Haha. He’s lying down. He votes sleep, too.

—You think we’ll be all right?

—I dunno. But sleeping through the day and walking at night got us this far.

—Where are we going?

—These coordinates. 34° 2´ 29˝, 102° 38´ 41˝

—Yeah, but where is that at?

—I dunno. I guess we keep walking until we find a little town that will have a little library where we can look it up.

—I’m hungry.

—I really can’t do anything about that, Tim.

—I know.

—Tomorrow.

—That’s how they’re gonna catch us.

—Maybe.

—We’re not fully self-sufficient. We need food. We need a library.

—We could eat the dog.

—We can’t eat your only friend.