Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (94 page)

“Aw, shit.”

“I don’t know exactly what it is we’re hunting--I guess I have to go with ‘werewolf’ even though I don’t believe it. But he’s messing with George. Throwing body parts at him.”

“Jesus Christ. That’s horrible.”

“No, it’s not. If he’s toying with his prey instead of running away, that’s a good thing for us. At some point he’s going to go directly after George. When he does, I’ll have a clear shot with the net.”

“Perfect!”

“Contact Bateman. Let him know that Prescott is down. Wait for my signal, and then drive over here as fast as you can.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sam set down the walkie-talkie, then took out his cell phone.

“Mind if I call George to see how he’s doing?” Lou asked.

“Yeah, I mind! As far as Ivan knows, he’s killed the only reinforcement that’s out there. Use your brain.”

Sam punched in a number on his cell phone. “Mr. Bateman? Status report. Prescott is down. Yes, sir. Deceased, sir. I’m not certain. She used the term ‘body parts.’ Yes, sir. Lou is right here, so I can confirm his status. I believe George is still alive, too. Yes, sir, I will. Thank you, sir.” Sam hung up.

“What’d he say?” Lou asked.

“Nothing of any importance to you. He did
not
say to speed over there and start firing like a maniac, just so you’re aware.”

“I figured.”

“You can wipe that judgmental expression right off your face, dude. I’ve already told you that you’re more than welcome to jog over there and help your friend. Won’t bother me one bit.”

Lou liked to think that if he weren’t so badly injured, that he
would
run over there, guns blazing. He certainly couldn’t do it in his current condition. Of course, early on, when his only physical ailment was some extra belly fat, he’d sat in the van with Michele and patiently waited for George to retrieve Ivan from inside the doomed mother’s home. Quite honestly, he was probably giving this poor kid a bunch of crap for something that Lou himself might not do.

No. George hadn’t been screaming at all when he was in the house, and certainly not in tones that indicated he was meeting a ghastly demise. This was much different. And if the little brat would drive Lou close enough to the action, there was no question that he’d get out of the van and do what he could to help.

Absolutely.

“How good is Angie with that net?” Lou asked.

“Flawless.”

“Does she get a lot of opportunities to use it?”

“Yeah, she spends every Wednesday out on the street netting pedestrians. Don’t ask stupid questions. Trust me, she’s good. And she’s good with the tranquilizer darts. If he comes out in the open, the werewolf will be caught.”

“What kind of darts is she using?”

“Like that would mean anything to you. She’s using a Pneu-dart rifle with Zoletil. It’ll take down a lion, so it’ll sure as hell take down a wolf.”

“What about a werewolf?”

“Same difference.”

“No. You haven’t seen this bastard change. It’s not like a...you know, I don’t even have a point of reference. He can change instantly. Any part of his body he wants. It’s like frickin’ CGI effects in a movie.”

“Maybe Hollywood has taken it to the next level. The 3-D craze got out of hand and he jumped out of some computer animator’s computer.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I think there’s something more going on than just some guy who can change his body like a chameleon...no, not even a chameleon, that just changes its color...what animal am I thinking of...?”

“A butterfly?”

“No...yeah, we’ll go with that. He’s like a butterfly that can change back and forth from maggot to butterfly in seconds. Less than seconds. You can’t do that shit in nature.”

“We heard all of this on the drive over. What’s your point?”

“My point is, don’t assume that just because it can take down a bear, that your dart can take down a werewolf.”

“He’ll be in a net.”

“He has sharp claws.”

“So do lions.”

“A lion doesn’t have the rational thought to cut through a net.”

“Gloomy, aren’t you?”

“When it’s appropriate.”

“Well, you’re not exactly helping plead your case that we should go after him, are you?”

“What I’m trying to say is that your partner, the one that isn’t dead already, doesn’t necessarily have things under control. And since we have a nice big van full of weapons, we should be over there helping out.”

“I think we should be right here, staying alive. Fortunately for me, I’ve got the gun.”

Lou took out his cell phone. “I’m going to check on George.”

“Whatever. You know what, I don’t even care anymore.”

George picked up on the first ring. “Lou, get over here! Now!”

“We’re on our way,” Lou assured him. The line went dead. “George? You still there?”

“He hang up on you?” asked Sam.

“They need help,” Lou said. “Let’s go.”

“Uh-uh. What did he say?”

“He said to get over here! What else does he need to say?”

“Your partner isn’t the one giving the orders.”

“Fine.” Lou slid open the side door.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to help him.”

“No. You’re staying here. I may still need you.”

“You said I could leave!”

“Yeah, because I didn’t think you’d actually try to go out there.” Sam kept his gun pointed at Lou, but adjusted the aim a bit, as if trying to center the target between Lou’s eyes. “Close the door.”

“Just let me go.”

“Close the door.”

“You already said I was very expendable. What difference does it make?”

“If you die, it’s going to be as bait, not as a wannabe hero.”

Having a gun pointed at him was always a scary thing, despite his earlier attempt to convince Sam otherwise, but realistically, Lou knew that if Sam was unwilling to risk the ire of his boss by letting him run out and get killed by Ivan, he probably wasn’t going to just shoot him in the head. That would be more difficult to explain.

Lou jumped out of the van. After a moment of hesitation, Sam fired.

Damn. He wasn’t quite as reluctant to use the gun as Lou had expected.

Lou’s leg buckled beneath him as he stepped onto the ground but he maintained his footing and did a fast limp to the back of the van. He winced as he did so--if he’d actually had any stitches in, they definitely would have torn at that. Hopefully Sam would waste a few precious seconds trying to work up the courage to get out of the van and come after him.

He threw open the back doors and grabbed the first thing he saw. He pulled the pin out of the grenade and tossed it over the van. He’d used a couple of fragmentation grenades before, but strictly for recreational purposes out in the New Mexico desert and never in a moment of extreme urgency. He couldn’t remember how much time he had between pulling the pin and the explosion--not that it mattered, since it wasn’t as if he could leisurely stand there waiting for the optimum moment to throw.

He slammed his hands over his ears and ran.

The grenade went off. Over the explosion, Lou heard Sam’s cry.

The questionable wisdom of throwing a grenade near a van containing a wide variety of explosives was not lost on Lou, but what else was he supposed to do?

Sam lay on the ground, half of his face black and charred. Though his limbs all remained intact, the bone was visible in several places on his body. The sight was grisly and sickening enough that Lou didn’t immediately notice that Sam still held the gun.

The bullet grazed Lou’s left thigh. He clutched at the wound and dropped to his knees.

Sam shouted something incoherent that might have been “I’ll get you” and fired another shot. Thank God he’d been so badly injured--the shot missed by almost nothing, and Lou was confident that it would have been an easy kill shot otherwise.

He forced himself to get back up. At least three of his bandages turned red all at once. He quickly stepped over to the right back corner of the van, which put him out of Sam’s sight unless Sam dragged himself across the ground a couple of feet. That seemed unlikely.

Lou hastily looked over his weapon selection. He didn’t want to kill Sam if he didn’t have to, but he couldn’t have the guy shooting at the van as he drove off. There had to be another tranquilizer rifle.

There were a couple of normal-looking rifles, and a few handguns, but nothing that seemed to be a tranquilizer.

There were several more grenades. A box labeled “Dynamite.” Another crossbow.

Sam fired another shot. It didn’t come anywhere close, and he couldn’t possibly see Lou, so he was just firing wildly. Lou didn’t blame him for losing his mind.

Screw it. There was no time to make a careful selection of weaponry or mentally debate the moral elements of the situation. He had to take Sam out of the equation, get in the van, and drive off to help George.

He picked up one of the handguns, then limped the long way around the van, focusing on not passing out. He peeked around the corner, saw that Sam was still looking toward the rear, and shot him in the head.

Lou immediately dropped the gun, leaned against the van, and let out a violent dry heave.

Fuck.

He’d seen a lot of awful things today, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d never murdered a human being. Even a cowardly little shit like Sam.

Focus.

Since he’d been forced to take a life, it was very important that he not waste it. If he used this opportunity to save George’s life, things would balance out, sort of. If he let George die because he was too busy wallowing in his guilt, well, that was a pretty lousy reason to guarantee himself eternal damnation.

The grenade had really done a number on the side of the van, but the tires looked okay. He offered a silent apology to the dead kid, got in the driver’s seat, and started up the engine.

He couldn’t wait to see how well Ivan did against
this
arsenal.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Caged Madness

“Do you know what I’m going to do to you, George?” Ivan inquired.

“Something antisocial?” George asked, trying not to give away that he was in incredible pain and was scared out of his mind. Being Ivan’s prisoner like this was bad enough, but Michele was most assuredly
not
doing well. Her skin color had gone from pale to looking almost jaundiced, and he thought her eyes had become a much darker shade of brown. She reminded him of a druggie having a massive overdose, except that instead of heroin coursing through her veins, she had werewolf spit.

“You cannot even imagine what I’m going to do to you,” said Ivan. “Not even in your worst nightmares can you conceive of what’s going to happen.”

“That’s pretty vague,” George noted. “I’d expect more from you. When a guy like you is reduced to threatening me in generalities, I can’t help but feel less frightened than I was before you started running your mouth.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s just drive in silence, so you can think about what I might do to you instead.”

“That completely works for me.”

George needed full concentration for this next part, anyway. It was really going to suck. He pressed his dislocated shoulder against one of the cage bars, trying to line the ball up with the joint socket. Of course, he couldn’t see the bones inside his shoulder, so he wouldn’t know if this was correct until the unpleasant moment of truth.

Thank God Ivan couldn’t see what he was doing in the rear-view mirror. He’d purposely swerve or hit a bump.

“So what are you thinking about?” Ivan asked.

“You know, when you keep talking like this, it makes you seem insecure,” George said. “Why are you insecure, Ivan? It seems to me like you’ve got the upper hand. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Just keep talking. You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

“You’re not even listening. My point is that
you’re
talking too much. It indicates a lack of confidence. I’m supposed to be sitting here thinking ‘I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!’ but when I hear all of that jabber from you I can’t help but believe that you’re worried about something.”

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that I
was
talking because I was worried. How does pointing that out work to your advantage? I’m curious.”

“You might get so mad that you make a mistake.”

“Like you did right before I escaped from the cage?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Georgie, I hate to break this to you, but not only am I not going to stop the van so I can go back there and try to scare you, but you’re unlikely to do a surprise transformation into a wolfman. You’re at quite a bit more of a disadvantage than I was.”

“I understand that.”

“But if you find my chatter reassuring, hey, that’s your decision.”

“It’s not really a decision. More of a mood.”

“Fuck you.”

“Now, when I said ‘fuck you’ before, you made a big deal out of it, like it was a sign of weakness. I don’t want to be a jerk about this, Ivan, but my theory about your lack of confidence is still holding up.”

Ivan was silent for a moment. “I’m taking your eyelids first.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You wanted specifics? The first thing I’m going to do is very carefully slice off your eyelids. Then we’re going to play a fun little game where we each get one of the eyelids, and we flick them against the wall, and we see whose falls off first. It’s really kind of a fun game. You’d be surprised how long an eyelid will stick to the wall if it hits with the wet side.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Then it drops to the floor, and it’s not a very fun game at all. You have to flick it just right.”

George had nothing else to say to that. He took a deep breath, worked up his courage, and then slammed his shoulder against the metal bar as hard as he could.

He bellowed in pain. Michele looked at him with mild curiosity.

“Whoa! What’re you doing back there, George?” Ivan asked. “That sounds like it hurt.”

George flexed his fingers. His shoulder was throbbing but his arm hurt much less now. One dislocated shoulder fixed.