CLAN

by Harry Shannon

Lips grabbed a fistful of bonds, stuffed them into the briefcase. "With my luck it's the pack of rabid beasts."

  "Oh, that was such a crock of crap," Carlita said. Her voice dripped sarcasm. "I can't believe you are such a pussy about dogs."

  But just then, something right behind her growled. Something big and smelly, standing on four legs at about knee level. Carlita had what felt like an endless amount of time to turn around, but at the same moment her body somehow dropped into an odd state of suspended animation. She began to both crouch and turn, the gun coming up in one smooth motion; eyes seeking the source of that threatening rumble. In real time, her reaction was flawless and remarkably fast… But in the strange new dimension she'd just entered, not quite fast enough. Meanwhile, the blood roared through her ears and the world went silent.

  "No!"

  A furry shape emerged from the ravenous dark and its enormous muzzle clamped down on her forearm. The teeth clenched just a bit and her arm went numb. Carlita ordered herself to fire the weapon, but her fingers loosened anyway and it dropped noisily to the wooden floor. The creature tugged, almost affectionately, and forced her body back, away from the protection of the easy chair.

  Carlita felt her eyes widen in panic. She turned her face pleadingly toward Lips. He was watching her, stunned into immobility, the facts just beginning to register on him. He had the paper-packed metal briefcase in his huge hands. That millisecond it took him to decide; to shift the briefcase to his left hand and then grab for his weapon, cost Carlita her life.

  She shrieked in pain as the other dimension evaporated and all her senses returned. The jaws moved rapidly, and the lower part of her arm simply disappeared. Carlita watched a huge explosion of blood shoot from the trunk of her arm like black water from a fire hose. The world dimmed darker, receded even further away. Carlita tried to scream but shock had already begun to set in. She fell backwards onto a throw rug and began to bleed out.

  The wolf dropped her arm and watched her. That ghastly muzzle was white with teeth and dark with blood. Seeing that she was helpless, it lowered its head and ripped out her throat. She was dead within seconds.

  "Carlita!"

  Lips saw the hulking shapes in the doorway and moaned. He now had the briefcase in his left hand and his weapon in the right. He backed up until his back was against the wall. He shouted to Case, desperation in his voice. "Please. My friends. Let me get up there with you, okay? We can work these things out between us, I swear it on my mother."

  Until that moment, Case had been hoping to remain undiscovered, but now saw that two of the wolves were already looking up at the loft. They knew Lips was addressing someone. Case shrugged. "No can do. You're on your own, pal."

  "Goddamnit!" More wolves entered the living room and fanned into position. Lips moved further down the wall. "This clip holds twenty, dickhead. If I'm going out, I'm taking you with me."

  If he fired upward, some of those rounds were bound to penetrate the wood.

  Case decided to offer his help. If necessary, he could always drag the man closer and if things spun out of control, shoot Lips in the face. Kelly saw the decision forming and grabbed at his arm. "Joe, don't!"

  "All right, then," Case said, ignoring her. "Give me your hand."

  "No. Let me see you first."

  Lips slithered further down the east wall of the cabin. He had a death grip on both the pistol and the briefcase. The ring of werewolves were showing their teeth but had not yet charged. Lips moved again. His back arrived at a window partially covered with broken, splintered boards. A faint breeze brushed his cheek. The moonlight was darkening behind him. The dawn would soon be here. "So. Where are you?"

  Case swallowed his fear and crawled to the edge of the loft. He lowered his arm. Lips saw that and moved yet again. Case watched his eyes carefully. A man always gave away the next move with his eyes.

  "Hah."

  At first Case thought Lips had laughed; the explosion of sound was pinched to tenor and had an oddly mirthful quality to it. Then the big man's body shook as if with fever and the sound came again. The gun discharged twice, down into the floorboards, and the briefcase clattered to the floor, spilling all those carefully collected bearer bonds.

  Lips screamed gibberish in what sounded like Russian, with a few English words sprinkled in. One of those was "Mother," Then he trembled and slammed his body back against the window several times. A sound emerged that was like steam escaping from a tea kettle; high pitched and shrill. Case finally realized what had happened. One of the werewolves had bitten him from behind, somewhere in the lower spine. It had him clenched in those fierce jaws and was shaking him back and forth.

  Two others came slinking into the center of the room. A third looked up at Case and grinned, daring him to interfere. There was nothing to be done, except wasting one precious bullet on a mercy shot. Lips was already dead, his mind just hadn't bought into the idea.

  Case swallowed and backed away from the lip of the loft. But before he did, he saw the two werewolves launch themselves like missiles. They attached themselves to the front of the big man's torso and began to eat him alive.

  Lips screamed again and began to beg and babble absolute nonsense. It didn't take long, a moment or two.

  Then he fell silent.

  Case looked at the others, their faces streaked with dust and sweat. "I think we can agree that we are all in some seriously deep shit."

  Doc Cherry had her eyes closed. "No kidding. Me, I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and this will all have been some kind of strange drug flashback."

  The sounds from down below were sickening; human bodies being wrenched apart, flesh being eaten and disgorged and eaten again. The pack fought amongst itself from time to time, although the contests seemed half-hearted. They slowly ate their fill.

  "We have to make it until dawn," Jennifer said. "They will have to change back before the sun comes up."

  "They're full," Cherry moaned. "Why don't they just leave us alone?"

  "Because we've seen them change," Case said. "We know the secret. We have to die. We'd best get ready."

  The floor below suddenly went silent. Case grabbed his spear. He tossed another to Kelly. He handed one of the knives to Doc Cherry. She reluctantly positioned herself at the window. Jake and Jennifer gripped the shotguns and moved to the opposite end of the loft. There was nothing they could do now but wait.

  A few minutes seemed like forever.

  When the attack came, it was all at once; with unprecedented ferocity and overwhelming force.

  Doc Cherry screamed. "One is on the roof!"

  At almost the same instant, the werewolves assaulted both sides of their defenses and tried to make it up into the loft. Case drove his spear deep into the chest of the animal that leapt onto his end. The creature howled and slipped backwards, taking the spear with it. Case grabbed his gun just as another muzzle appeared. This one was large and white. The hammer clicked on an empty cylinder. Driven backwards, Case struck out with one of the butcher knives. The huge male came up onto the loft and lowered its head. Case waved the knife to hold it off and slipped Kelly behind him.

  On the other end of the loft, Jake and Jennifer were firing down into the darkness and reloading. Yelps of fear or agony gave testament to the effectiveness of their barrage. But they were also out of shells within minutes. Everything went hand to hand.

  Jake began hitting the encroaching paws with pieces of furniture and stamping down with his foot. Case did a double take. Something odd was happening to Jake's head and shoulders. Case could only spare a glance, but it was long enough to verify that Jake was altering in form. He was one of them. A shapeshifter. Now it was wolf fighting wolf. Case looked to the right. Less surprised, he realized Jennifer Fowler had also grown a long muzzle and teeth and was somewhere between worlds. The two stood, snapping and fighting off their opponents. Their allies were part of the Clan.

  Behind Case, Cherry gasped. A muzzle poked through the hole in the back wall. She
tried to stab it. The creature withdrew just in time and then returned to sink its fangs into her hand, crushing the fragile bones. Cherry cried out and kicked with her feet. The head withdrew again. Cherry's hand spurted blood. Case was only half aware of what was going on behind him, but Jennifer called out, her human voice weirdly distorted by the physical alteration that had taken place. "Case, Cherry got bit. We can't let her leave here alive!"

  He didn't have time to wonder what Jennifer meant by that. The huge male confronting him tried snapping at his ankles. Case resisted the natural urge to kick and instead brought the knife straight down in hopes of hitting the top of the thick neck. He scored a direct hit, penetrating muscle and reaching what seemed to be an artery. Blood emerged in a stream.

  The creature bellowed in pain and moved back.

  And some of the other wolves stopped fighting.

  Cherry was now desperately trying, somewhat in vain, to keep from bleeding to death. The wolf man known as Jake moved to help her, but Jennifer stopped him. "It's too late," she said, softly, in that weirdly distorted creature voice. "You know we can't allow her to turn. She's not trained, her mind would break."

  "But…"

  "Just let her go."

  Meanwhile, Case leaned forward. His mind was concentrating beyond maximum thrust. He simply could not let this beast get through him to Kelly. He held the knife low and kept it moving. The wolf man followed the blade with its eyes; Case knew in his heart he'd hurt it and thrown its confidence out of whack. He stabbed forward without warning and the big wolf flinched. Case snarled like an animal before he could stop himself. It was then that he realized everything around him had gone still.

  Because all the other creatures were watching.

  "He's the new Alpha."

  Case blinked. "What?"

  "Defeat him," Jennifer said. He did not dare look directly at her, but his ears told him she was nearly back to human form. "If you do, we go free."

  And where his human heart was darkest, Case knew that to be true. Knew his entire life, every triumph and tragedy from combat to police work to personal loss had brought him to this point. It was his destiny to be here. Case howled. His entire body convulsed from a fresh surge of primordial adrenaline. He grimaced as something he'd always fought down struggled to surface, the blistering rage that civilization had tried in vain to strip from him. Now, at last, Case just let it win.

  He felt his upper lip pull back as he bared his own teeth and challenged the leader. "Come on, you mangy bastard!"

  The big wolf was bleeding heavily. He fought his way back to his feet, but was already a little off balance. His pupils contracted and Case knew instantly that he was about to spring. Again ignoring his natural urge, which was to protect Kelly at all costs, Case let himself fall onto his back, as he had done once before. So as the big male launched himself at Case's torso he met only empty air.

  Case kept his eyes on its eyes and brought the butcher knife up into the wolf's exposed guts. It shrieked in pain and gagged. Case was doing what had been done to him years before, and with twice as much hatred.

  "Now eat this!" Case said.

  He stabbed deep and worked the blade in a Z shape; all the way across, down at an angle and then across again, very aware that the wound was much like the scars he carried on his own abdomen. He felt the wet warmth of blood and the slimy hose of intestines spilling out onto his lap.

  The Alpha's thin scream was horrendous. It hurt Case's ears. The werewolf thrashed back and forth, trying to avoid the excruciating pain and snapping at Case's face. Case grabbed its head and held tight as the guts fell free. Meanwhile, the wolves down below howled in response to their leader's agony. Case held on and squeezed, wanted to crush the skull with his bare hands. The two males locked together, motionless.

  "Case, finish it."

  Jennifer Fowler again. By some amazing power she was now nearly back to human form, entirely of her own volition. Case pushed upward with all of his waning strength and rolled the gutted Alpha sideways. The wolf feebly snarled at him. Case avoided being bitten and forced the head backwards, exposing the soft neck. He held the knife there, ready to cut. Time stood still. Eventually, the beast relaxed and surrendered. It let Case have its throat. The audience below watched, in shock.

  Case moved the knife around, just to show that he could. He did not finish off the big male. Somehow, Case instinctively knew he should offer the creature a few more seconds of life, and a bit of dignity.

  "Joe?" Kelly was watching with amazed eyes. The shadows around and below them began to shift and move. The intense combat ceased. The other werewolves began to back away.

  Case looked deeply into the Alpha wolf's dying eyes. He nodded with respect. The monster blinked back and whined. It closed its eyes and managed one last, ragged breath. It was ready. Instead of cutting the werewolf's throat, Case reached under it and pushed it over the edge. The dying male crashed down into what was left of the furniture, its guts trailing onto the floorboards.

  A strange grunting, whistling sound erupted from the remaining werewolves. Case had an odd, sing-song phrase running through his mind: The King is dead—long live the King! The pack seemed confused and anxious, and many of them looked at the window and howled. The sun!

  The sun was now creasing the far horizon.

  Many werewolves began to change back into human form. Case made out the lantern jaw of Hondo, at the back of the room, not really participating in the violence. Hondo, who jogged briskly for the exit even as his haunches became more like naked legs and buttocks. Some nuzzled fallen comrades who had already become human in death, but then hurried away as their bodies turned human again.

  For his part, Joe Case leaned forward, exhausted. He peered down over the edge.

  The powerful Alpha male he had bested was shifting like melted wax and becoming the huge strong man he had seen at the picnic, trying to get Jennifer to dance. It was the boy who had tattoos of naked women on his arms and legs. Case couldn't remember the kid's name, if he'd ever known it. Just then another one of the wolves morphed into one of Jake's red-headed half-brothers. Several of the townsfolk were laying there, lupine bodies now changed back and forced into the form of human corpses.

  Doc Cherry kept trying to sit up, to say something, her lips moving feverishly, but the loft floor was already dark with her tainted blood. Case found some torn clothing and began to fashion bandages but Doc Cherry shook her head. She tried to speak. Case leaned closer, "No," Doc said in a raspy, pleading whisper. "I don't want to live like them." He knelt down to hold her hand, but life was already ebbing away. She expired seconds later. Case closed her eyes. In a matter of moments the cabin was deserted, except for the four of them, the already dead and the dying.

  34

  Joe Case thought the sun had never looked so beautiful. The huge golden orb flowed light over the green pine forest like syrup, warming everything it touched. The four survivors dropped the stepladder and climbed down from the loft. They picked their way through the lumps of slaughtered flesh and blackened furniture and went out into the driveway. They were covered with blood, dirt and smeared viscera. Their eyes were red from lack of sleep and their skin pale from stress. Yet even with the carnage around them the forest seemed deep and pure.

  Because they were still alive.

  Case looked at Jake and then extended his hand. They shook. "I assume if you were going to kill us you would have done that already."

  Jennifer did not smile. "We really should, you know." She looked off into the forest. "Don't be too hard on them, Case. For decades we haven't been a problem to human beings, but then one of the males got out of hand. Now that you've killed him, they're leaderless again and no threat to anybody."

  Case looked at Jake. "Aren't you taking over?"

  Jake shook his head. "We're out of here. We'd already planned to go, even before this fiasco exploded."

  Kelly hugged herself. "Then what will they do now?"

  "I think they'll
all turn to Hondo, since he's well liked and gentle," Jennifer said. "Believe me, he's no murderer. Before long, they won't be a problem to anybody."

  Case rubbed his neck. "How can we be sure of that?"

  "My people will soon cease to exist, Joe."

  "Samson was the last of the breed males, except for me," Jake said. "And now Jennifer and I are leaving. You see, Hondo and the others are sterile. That means they'll die out soon. You can trust us, I think we've proven that. The question is can we trust you?"

  Case and Kelly exchanged glances. "Yes. If none of this starts up again, you have my word we'll keep your secret."

  Jennifer frowned. "Like you just said, how can we be sure?"

  Case reached behind his shirt. He took out four bearer bonds worth one hundred thousand each. He handed two of them to Jake, who smiled. "I guess now we all have something on each other, huh?"

  "Exactly."

  Kelly waved an arm to indicate the war zone the cabin had become. "But what about…all this?"

  "Kelly, by the time they construct some sort of explanation for what happened here, we'll all be long gone. The Russian mob will figure the missing bonds burned up in the fire and write this off. God only knows how the cops and the forensics folks are going to explain this, especially if they dig through the files in Cherry's office, but we can't worry about that."

  She sighed. "I guess not."

  "Maybe they will buy her theory about some nearby government experiment gone wrong. Maybe they'll think this was a cult suicide. Hell, it looks like it could be anything. Toss in a Russian Mob war, a drug war, or even a thwarted terrorist attack. Hell, I don't know what they'll say and don't really care."

  Kelly hugged Jennifer. "Where will you go?"

  "As far away from the others as we can," Jennifer said. Her tone was not all melancholy. "You see, we're almost completely human, more than any generation of the Clan has been before. That's why we had to help you."

  "We're grateful you did."

  "We're nearly human and we intend to stay that way. Oh, we do want to preserve the tradition of hunting at the full moon, call it our spiritual practice, but that will be all. We will always outlaw killing other humans."