Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (83 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Is it because you’re bald?”

“No.”

“When did you last get laid?”

“I don’t know.”

“Liar. Somebody who looks like you knows exactly how long ago it was. Tell me.”

“Three weeks.”

“Hey, that’s not so bad. I thought it would be six months or something like that. Was she a prostitute?”

“No.”

“One of those Internet booty calls?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? Details, please.”

Dale sniffed. “We met online, but I’d seen her in person a couple of times.”

“Gotcha. Do you need a Kleenex or something? Your nose is all snotty. You wouldn’t want your hot Internet sex bunny to see you like this, would you?”

“No.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“No.”

“Because you broke up, or because I’m going to murder you?”

“We weren’t really together.”

“She was a hooker, wasn’t she?”

“I said no.”

“Was she a skank?”

“No.”

“Do you love her?”

“No.”

“Do you love anybody?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, so you
do
love somebody. Well, Dale-without-his-Chip, let’s discuss this. Just remember that the longer you keep me engaged in conversation, the longer you get to live, unless I hear a car coming and have to gut you. You never know, the details of your love life might be so fascinating to me that I
forget
to murder you. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d be walking home and think ‘Oh, how about that, I completely forgot to murder Dale! How forgetful of me!’ You’d enjoy that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Who do you love?”

“Karen.”

“Does she love you back?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know.”

“So who is this darling Karen?”

“Co-worker.”

“Is she hot?”

“Yes.”

“See, that probably explains why the attraction isn’t mutual. Is she blonde, brunette, redhead...?”

“Black hair with red streaks.”

“So you’re into the dyed hair thing, huh? Nice. Does she have any tattoos?”

“One.”

“One that you know about, right?”

“Yes.” 

“Does Karen live around here?”

Dale vigorously shook his head. “No.”

“Are you sure? You’re not just saying that to protect her from me?”

“She doesn’t live here.”

“Well, obviously she doesn’t live
here
. The question was whether or not she lives
around
here.”

“No.”

“I think you’re being deceptive. How far away is she? Five minutes? Ten?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s really not much of a crush if you don’t even know where she lives. You should’ve followed her home. Women love it when you put forth that extra bit of effort. And with enough practice, you can actually build up a resistance to pepper spray. It’s true. I love the taste now.”

Dale was still crying. It was becoming kind of annoying.

“You know, Dale, we don’t have to be enemies. I’m not saying that we should hang out and drink together and become best buddies, but this doesn’t have to end in such a negative way. Having a werewolf on your side makes you kind of powerful. Ladies can’t resist a nice furry werewolf, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“I think you’re lying about not knowing where she lives. I think you’ve done a bit of light stalking in your time. Don’t try to deny it--I see that glint of mischief in your eye.”

“I never stalked her.”

“Okay, fine. No stalking from the Boy Scout. But you know where she lives. We could pay her an unannounced visit. If she doesn’t want to let you in, I’ll kick the door down. Or, better yet, you just keep the car running while I go get her. We’ll take her someplace nice and private. You could do anything you wanted to her. I wouldn’t even watch if it made you uncomfortable--I’d just wait in the next room and listen.”

“Go to hell.”

“Do you understand what’s happening here? We’re bargaining for your life. That’s a pretty major deal. On one hand, I’m threatening you with a horrible death--blood and limbs flying everywhere. That’s option one. On the other hand, I’m offering you a completely hedonistic experience, the chance to do whatever you want with your precious little Karen, and she’ll be helpless to stop you. Whatever freaky, depraved, brutal, and just plain fun thing you want to do, you can. I might even let you keep her afterward. That’s option two. What do you say?”

“I said, go to hell.”

“Really? You’re not even going to pretend to go along with the plan? I don’t know if that’s admirable or stupid. Okay, deal’s off. Get out of the car.”

“What?”

“Get out of the car. Now.”

Dale wiped some tears from his eyes. “You’re letting me go?”

“No, I’m not letting you go. You had your chance and you turned it down, so get out of the car and run so I can hunt you down and tear you apart. Go on. Shoo.”

Dale unfastened his seatbelt. “Please, I--”

“The time for talk is over. You should have at least given me a fake address and then waited for an opportunity to exploit a moment of carelessness. That’s what I would’ve done. Get out. I’m giving you a head start, but I’m not saying how long, so if you’re not a complete idiot you’ll get moving now.”

Dale opened the door, got out of the car, and ran. Ivan watched him go. He was a good runner.

If he didn’t have other things to do, Ivan would’ve made an evening out of this. It was extremely rewarding to chase a victim until he or she literally collapsed from exhaustion. One time he’d even followed a man in an electric wheelchair, just casually circling him in full wolfman form, hoping to go until his battery completely ran out. Unfortunately, they got too close to a populated area and the cripple was screaming too much, so Ivan had to kill him, though he rode around on the wheelchair for a while afterward.

He got out of the car, stretched, then completed his transformation. Became the Beast. It felt exhilarating.

The Beast took off after Dale. Caught up to him in seconds. Swiped his claws across Dale’s back, cutting so deep that flesh dangled from all five of his talons.

Dale didn’t fall. Impressive.

The Beast let him run a few more steps, watching him bleed, then pounced. Dale hit the ground face-first, letting out a loud grunt and then a muffled shriek.

Poor, unfortunate Dale. If he’d gone along with it, the Beast really would have helped him rape the girl he loved.

He went wild with his claws and teeth, shredding Dale’s back. Then he rolled him over and shredded his front side.

He rolled him over again to get any parts he might have missed. There weren’t many.

He smiled as he looked down at the remains. A moment later, he frowned.

Shit. Now Dale’s clothes were in worse shape than the ones he was wearing.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Working Things Out

“Is that him?” Lou asked, pointing through the broken windshield.

George applied the brake and leaned forward. “Where?”

“There!”

“The cat?”

“Is that a cat?”

“It’s sure as hell not a werewolf.”

“It’s a possum,” said Michele. “They’re everywhere.”

“I didn’t see what it actually was,” said Lou. “I just noticed movement.”

George muttered something rude. They’d been slowly driving around for more than an hour. They hadn’t been able to get a net, but one of the local shops did have a blanket and a travel-sized sewing kit. So Lou had sewn the silver rings onto the blanket in various places, hoping that maybe if they successfully tossed the blanket on top of the werewolf, the silver would keep him from getting out. It was perhaps the furthest thing from a foolproof plan that they’d ever concocted, but unless they drove past a guy with a cart selling hot dogs and silver bullets, their options were limited.

Michele was filing the handle of the silver cross into a point. If by some miracle they were able to get close enough to use it, it would make one hell of a weapon. Sharpened silver cross to the heart. No more werewolf.

“Looks pretty good, don’t you think?” asked Michele, holding it up for their inspection.

“Yeah.” George was originally going to ask Lou to file the cross and Michele to sew the rings, but he didn’t want to seem sexist. They’d both done fine work. “Oh, by the way, Lou, I forgot to complement you on your lovely bracelet. It really brings out the color in your eyes.”

“It could be useful.”

“That tiny thing? Maybe if we stab him with it a few thousand times.”

“It makes me feel better to have it.”

“Because it’s silver or because it’s a cross?”

Lou shrugged. “Both. Don’t make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t even bother.”

“Maybe we should get some wooden stakes, too,” said Lou.

“That’s vampires.”

“I know that, but how do we know that the vampire myths didn’t come from werewolves? I completely believe in werewolves now, but I don’t believe in vampires yet, so isn’t it possible that somebody once killed a werewolf with a wooden stake to the heart and over the centuries the story changed to a vampire?”

“That’s actually not a bad point,” said George. “Maybe we should get some garlic, too. What else kills monsters?”

Lou shrugged. “Direct sunlight?”

“Well, Lou, I’m afraid we already know his weakness isn’t direct sunlight, because we’ve seen him out in the direct goddamn sun!”

“We’re brainstorming! You don’t criticize ideas in a brainstorming session!”

“Fine, fine. Write ‘direct sunlight’ on the chalkboard. Jesus. What else?”

“In
The War of the Worlds
, they defeated the aliens with the common cold.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah. I was just seeing if you would criticize it. How about holy water?”

“Good, good. We’ll pick some up if we drive by a church.”

“Also,” said Michele, “he might need to return to his coffin before sunrise.”

“Let me make this very clear,” George told her. “Lou gets to behave like a third-grader because he’s my partner. You do not have that option. I want serious suggestions.”

“I’m so terribly sorry to have offended you,” said Michele. “I guess I was just trying to draw attention away from the fact that our brilliant plan to recapture the werewolf is to just drive around hoping he’ll be conveniently wandering around. It’s a good one. I see why you make the big bucks.”

“Better this than sitting around with our thumbs up our rectums waiting for the reinforcements,” said George. “You never know, he may be looking for us, too.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

“You seem to think that because we’ve done arts and crafts together that we’re not going to put you in that cage. That line of thinking is incorrect.”

“Sorry. I just happen to believe that brainstorming ways to kill vampires in hopes that these ways might also work on werewolves is silly.”

“Not just vampires. All monsters.”

“Either way, it’s silly. We should get more bullets.”

“Bullets don’t kill it.”

“So far they haven’t. But a whole shitload of bullets at once might kill it. Or even a grenade.”

“Do you own a grenade?”

“No, but I’m not the mobster.”

“We’re not mobsters. We perform unpleasant tasks that are usually illegal, but we don’t have any mafia connections. And when we pack for a trip to break an old man’s thumbs, we typically leave the grenades at home.”

“Can’t you get them? Don’t you have connections?”

“Not in the middle of the frickin’ swamp! You think I can just call somebody and have them drop a little care package with a parachute out of a plane?”

“They killed King Kong by shooting him off the Empire State Building,” said Lou. “We could try that.”

“You’re an asshole.”

* * *

Frank Bateman had gone three weeks and four days without a cigarette. The last one was after he drowned his son’s chemistry teacher. Technically, his men had been the ones to tie the rocks around Mr. Amrita’s feet and drop him into the lake, but it had bothered Bateman. He liked Mr. Amrita. He seemed to genuinely care about his students and brought an infectious enthusiasm to the subject matter. Hell, after the first parent/teacher conference, Bateman had almost been compelled to break out his old chemistry set from when he was a kid and start mixing some liquids.

But when he’d explained to Mr. Amrita that it was unacceptable for Bryan to get less than a C in the class, apparently the implications of that message had not sunk in properly. That’s what Bateman got for trying to be subtle. There was no doubt that Bryan deserved the D, since he was a lazy video game-playing dumb-ass who probably cheated just to get the D, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Bryan needed a halfway decent grade point average if he was going to get into a good school, and Mr. Amrita stood in the way of that.

Bateman had met them out there by the lake and explained the situation. Some would say that it didn’t matter, since the poor chemistry teacher was going to die anyway, but Bateman felt that a man always deserved to know why he was being put to death. It was a respect thing. Mr. Amrita had done the usual begging and crying, which was fine. He was scared and Bateman understood that. No shame in fearing death.

He’d waited in the car while Gallows and Bonez (not their real names) rowed Mr. Amrita out to the middle of the lake and dropped him in.

Then he’d gone home and told Bryan that if his chemistry grade wasn’t at least a C on his next report card, he’d smash the fucking Xbox to pieces with a sledgehammer and Bryan wouldn’t get another one. After that, Bateman went out onto the back porch and had a cigarette.

He’d been nice and relaxed since then, until he got the call that the werewolf was loose.

Very disappointing. And unnerving.

He probably should’ve used top men for this, but George Orton and Lou Flynn had an excellent reputation, they just happened to be in the area, and they worked cheap. The last part was the most important. Bateman didn’t live his current lifestyle by throwing money away, and it should have been a straightforward, easy job. Now he had to pay out the ass for bounty hunters, and the deal with Mr. Dewey was a flat fee arrangement, although Bateman planned to try to renegotiate, considering that the whole idea about the werewolf not transforming except during the full moon was apparently an extreme bit of misinformation.