He was losing his grip on Ivan. He
couldn't let that happen. What if the werewolf ran back the way
they'd come, rushing out the main entrance and hacking up new
victims left and right?
Ivan got one of his legs free, and
kicked George in the face. It definitely drew blood. George didn't
care.
Several pins fell. Was some idiot really
still bowling?
No, it was Lou, coming to the rescue.
Lou kicked away the remaining pins and
crawled through the back entrance to the lane. Later--again, if he
survived--George would thank him profusely for deviating from the
plan. If Lou had been in here and George had heard explosions, he
probably would've come in to make sure everything was okay,
too.
Lou picked up a bowling pin as he got back to
his feet.
George made another grab for Ivan's
legs. Ivan caught George's wrists and gave them a powerful tug that
sent twin bolts of pain all the way to his shoulders. Both of
George's arms flopped uselessly onto the lane. He would've expected
it to hurt twice as much as when he'd had one shoulder dislocated
earlier, but it hurt a lot more than that.
Ivan ran at Lou.
Lou swung the pin, bashing it so hard across
Ivan's face that the pin broke in half in a shower of wood
chips.
George couldn't catch his breath. He felt
like he might be having a heart attack. Considering the amount of
pain he was in at the moment, that sounded almost relaxing.
* * *
Lou slammed the broken pin into Ivan's chest,
trying to use it like a broken bottle. The splinters wouldn't kill
him, but Lou just needed to hurt Ivan enough to make him run away.
If he ran away, Lou was confident that he could get him with the
dynamite that was currently wedged into the waist of his pants.
Mostly confident, anyway.
He really hoped that stuff was stable.
* * *
Ivan had no intention of running away.
He was going to fuck these guys up.
* * *
George rolled onto his side,
prayed that his shoulder was in the right spot, and bashed himself
against the bowling lane. He thought he might be screaming louder
than the blast of the grenades, but he didn't care.
God
that hurt.
He repeated the process with the other
shoulder.
Lou seemed to be holding up...well, poorly.
He'd gotten in some good hits, but the werewolf was nowhere near
out of commission.
* * *
Lou punched Ivan in the stomach. It was a
solid, powerful blow, yet it did nothing.
What if he lit the fuse? Blew them both
up.
He'd kill himself, but end the werewolf's
rampage forever.
No. Fuck suicide, even heroic sacrifice
suicide. He'd poke out the werewolf's eyeballs, kick him away, then
blow his ass up, after which, he and George should probably make a
hasty retreat for the exit. They were having good luck with the
slow arrival of law enforcement agencies today, but that winning
streak couldn't last forever.
He extended his thumb and jabbed at Ivan's
right eye.
Ivan grabbed Lou's wrist, twisted it, and
then shoved it into his mouth.
Lou shrieked as the werewolf's fangs tore
through muscle and crunched through bone.
* * *
He bit his hand off! Holy shit! He bit Lou's
hand off!
George's arms still weren't working
right, but he managed to push himself to his feet. His partner
stumbled backwards, slipped in the gutter, and landed hard, blood
spraying from his arm.
Ivan gulped down his hand and licked his
bloody chops.
Then he frowned.
Shook his head violently.
Gagged.
"The cross!" Lou shouted. "He swallowed the
cross!"
Ivan spat out some foam and clutched
at his throat. George staggered over to the werewolf. He couldn't
believe it. Lou had been right--that furry son of a bitch couldn't
deal with a cross, at least one that was sliding down his goddamn
windpipe.
If that cross was burning through his
insides, George had to make sure it didn't take an efficient
route.
Knowing that Ivan was an agent of
Satan or something like that made George feel even better about the
violence he needed to inflict. He punched Ivan in the face, sending
bloody spew flying into the air. Ivan's lower jaw went off-center.
A dime-sized hole formed in his throat.
No. That wasn't good enough.
George kicked Ivan's feet out from
under him. The werewolf fell. George got down with him. Ivan's eyes
were wide with fright as the tiny silver cross continued to do its
damage.
Ivan's entire body began to shift from wolf
to human and back again, a wave of transformation that ran back and
forth from head to toe.
George punched him in the face, then grabbed
him by the hair and pulled him to a sitting position. He didn't
want the cross to burn out through the back of his neck.
Had to get the heart.
Ivan wailed and swiped at George, but they
were weak efforts. Another spot of blood appeared on Ivan's chest,
so George tilted him, hoping that he was aiming the cross
properly.
Ivan's face became human. He tried to
say something but couldn't speak. Probably trying to get in one
last smart-ass comment.
Too bad for him.
With a sudden burst of strength, Ivan leaned
his head forward and bit at George's arm. His human teeth scraped
harmlessly across George's flesh.
Then Ivan gasped, loudly.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Blood poured from his mouth as all strength
vanished from his body.
George let him drop.
Ivan, his body half-human, half-wolfman, lay
motionless on the bowling lane.
Dead.
Finally
.
George tore off his shirt as he hurried over
and pulled Lou to his feet. He quickly wrapped the shirt around
Lou's bleeding stump, as tightly as he could.
"It's going to be fine," said George. "I
promise."
Lou looked like a zombie, but he hadn't
completely checked out quite yet. "Is he dead?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, good."
"Just come with me," George said. "If we can
beat the cops, everything will be fine."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Wrap-Up
"The werewolf is dead," said Bateman. The
phone felt like a live grenade in his hand.
"I know. I saw." Mr. Dewey's tone was hard to
figure out. Bateman assumed that it was "tightly controlled
rage."
"It wasn't my fault," Bateman
insisted. "The guys we hired had an excellent reputation. It was
just a simple transport job. He was in a durable cage. Nothing
should have gone wrong."
"And yet we're left with a dead
werewolf."
"I'm sorry. We did our
best."
"I have a huge amount of resources at my
disposal, Mr. Bateman. Resources that are no longer of any use to
me. Therefore, I'm going to devote these resources to making the
rest of your life extraordinarily unpleasant."
Bateman's throat went dry. "Are you
threatening me?"
"Yes, I most certainly am. You have just made
yourself the worst, and last, enemy of your life."
"Hey, you can't blame me! You want revenge,
blame the guys who lost him! You can't come after me for this! I
never had to offer him to you in the first place!"
"But you did, and you gave me false
hope. I believe that responsibility always starts at the top. I
have no interest in the lowlife thugs you hired to do your dirty
work. This is all on you."
"Let's talk about this."
"We are talking. It's over for you, Mr.
Bateman. Goodbye."
Mr. Dewey hung up. "Hey!" Bateman shouted
into the phone. "Hey! You can't do this!"
He tossed the phone against the wall,
shattering it. Oh, God, he was so very screwed. He threw up onto
his new carpet, then ran out of his office.
"Dad, what's wrong?" Bryan asked. The
dumb-ass was playing video games, right there in the living room
where Bateman could see, even though he'd been strictly forbidden
to do so.
"Pack your things!"
"Why?"
"Because I said so, you stupid fuck!"
"But I've got a date with Mindy tonight!"
Bateman ran across the living room and
kicked the widescreen TV as hard as he could, putting a huge hole
in the center of the screen. The satisfaction he felt was minimal,
but Bryan did get up and hurry off to his room.
Bateman threw up again, then ran off to
pack.
* * *
Jonathan Dewey sat silently in his chair.
Helena put her hand on his shoulder. "It'll
be okay, honey. We'll find another way. It probably wouldn't have
worked anyway."
He pulled away from her hand. "Is that
supposed to make me feel better?"
"I just meant--"
"Werewolves do not die of
brain tumors, Helena! I had a
chance
, and now it's
ruined
!"
"But--"
"Shut up. Get out of here and leave me alone.
I have to send some people off to bring me Bateman's head."
* * *
"We got ripped off, bad," said George.
"Well, I'm sorry we weren't given the
opportunity to seek medical care that would have been covered by my
insurance." Lou poked at the heavy bandage over his stump.
"We needed that money."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for getting my
hand bit off by a werewolf. If I'd known that it would cause
problems with our financial situation, I never would have let him
do that. I thought you were going to donate everything to charity
anyway. Become a better person."
"I never said I was going to donate
everything to charity. But I am going to become a better person.
Deal with it."
It had been a rough two days. George had
thought that Lou was indeed going to bleed to death as they sped
away from the bowling alley. He pulled behind the next building,
made a tourniquet out of a crossbow bolt and a rag he found in the
van, and got the bleeding under control.
The process of cauterization had been
ugly.
After a few panicked calls, they found
a doctor of ill-repute who was willing to patch up their wounds and
hide them away for a couple of days, in exchange for almost all of
the cash in the briefcase.
"You couldn't have got us a car with more
legroom?" Lou asked, shifting uncomfortably. "I can't make it all
the way to Canada in this."
"Then we'll go to Mexico."
"Seriously, George. We need to steal
something else."
"Yeah, let's steal a big roomy clown car with
flashing lights that makes wacky sound effects. We certainly
wouldn't want to be in a non-descript automobile when cops, bad
guys, and the general public are all looking for us."
"I didn't say it had to be a clown car. Just
something roomier."
"At least your arm takes up less room
now."
Lou frowned at him. "Are you really going to
make jokes about my hand? Seriously?"
"I'm just trying to make you laugh so you
don't cry."
"I'm not gonna cry."
"Good."
"Do you think I'm a werewolf now?"
"Are you bringing that up again?
"Is it really such a terrible thing if I want
reassurance? I got bit. I got bit really, really bad." He held up
his bandaged stump. "See?"
"You saw how quickly it affected Michele.
It's been two days. Maybe it's a special kind of bite. An injection
or something."
"I hope so."
"I told you, I'm going to watch over you. You
start to feel wolfy, we'll put you in the trunk. Everything's going
to be fine. I didn't get my throat torn out by Ivan, so I'm sure as
hell not going to get it torn out by you."
"Yeah, you're right. I'm feeling
optimistic."
"So am I."
Lou turned on the radio. Some hip-hop music
blared over the speakers. "Do you like this song?"
"It's crap."
"Good. I think we'll listen to it." Lou began
to move his head back and forth to the beat. "Groove with me,
George."
"You look like an idiot."
"I'm an idiot with rhythm. C'mon, groove with
me."
George watched him for a moment, then smiled.
He cranked up the volume and the two thugs grooved off into the
sunset.
Other Books by Jeff Strand
Fangboy
The Sinister Mr. Corpse
Dweller
Benjamin's Parasite
Pressure
Kutter
Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience
Necessary)
Single White Psychopath Seeks Same
Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)
Gleefully Macabre Tales
The Severed Nose
Disposal
Mandibles
Elrod McBugle on the Loose
Out of Whack
How to Rescue a Dead Princess
The Haunted Forest Tour (with Jim Moore)
Draculas (with JA Konrath, Blake Crouch, and
F. Paul Wilson)
Suckers (with JA Konrath)
Visit Jeff Strand's more-or-less official
website at http://www.jeffstrand.com