by M. D. Massey
“So, if I was going to take out the Corridor pack’s alpha, I’d want to do it under a new moon.” I looked at Bobby for confirmation, and he nodded. “Good to know.”
Bobby was chewing on a blade of grass as we walked along, and his forehead was wrinkled as he walked beside me. “Scratch, there’s something I can’t figure out. If you’re this mighty hunter, why don’t you know all this stuff already?”
“Honestly, you’re the first ‘thrope I’ve seen. Everything I’ve known about your kind up until now has all been rumint and speculation.”
“Rumint?”
“‘Rumor intel’—stuff you’ve heard but that you can’t confirm.”
The kid nodded and kept chewing that blade of grass. “Okay, but if that’s the case, then why do you smell like you’ve been around ‘thropes?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Run that by me again?”
“Yeah man, you smell like ‘thropes. I caught the scent on you back in the warehouse. That was one of the reasons why I decided I could trust you. I figured maybe you were sent by my pack to track me down and help me get away.”
I struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation for what Bobby was saying. “You sure I wasn’t just somewhere that a lycanthrope had been?”
“No, man, I’d know it. The scent would be stale in that case, but this is fresh. One, maybe two days old on you, I’m sure of it. But kind of—I don’t know—off somehow. It’s hard to describe. You smell like a lycanthrope, but now that I’ve been around you for a while, I don’t think it’s wolf.” He leaned in and started sniffing all over me. “Nope, I’m sure of it. Not wolf.”
I pushed him back with a hand on his forehead. “Do you mind? Personal space is sort of a thing with me.”
The kid’s cheeks flushed, and he backed off with his hands in the air. “Sorry, man, I just haven’t been around a lot of humans recently. My bad.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked off to the side. “I just thought you’d want to know what it was, is all.”
I sighed. “It’s okay, just don’t do it again without asking.” The kid nodded and the stupid grin he usually wore popped right back in place. “But if it’s not wolf, then what could it be?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Supposed to be lots of different kinds of lycanthropes. All I’ve ever seen are wolves though, but you have to remember that at five years in, I’m still pretty new at this.”
“This is all pretty new to everybody, I think.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But the rumor is, there’s always been undead and lycanthropes around—just not this many.”
“Bullshit.”
Bobby waved his hands with a look of incredulity on his face. “Look, man, I’m not saying I believe it. But you have to admit, all those stories had to come from somewhere. I mean, practically every culture on earth has some sort of folklore surrounding vampires and shape-shifters. If you think about it, it does kind of make sense.”
I let that roll around inside my head for a while. If what Bobby was saying was true, then why the sudden increase in Them after the War? And if there was some specific event that caused the increase, could it be reversed? There was so much that I didn’t know about the origin of these creatures, and I couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere out there, there might be a way to send all these things back to where they came from.
Right as I was finishing that thought, we started up the road to the vet clinic. I figured I’d better fill the kid in so he knew what he was walking into. I told him about Gabby and the doc, and why we were holed up here. I also hinted that Captain Perez might not be so keen on ‘thropes.
“Oh, that’s understandable. I mean, not all ‘thropes are friendly, so I get that. I promise, I won’t make any trouble for you guys. And if things get too heavy, I’ll just make myself scarce.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” This seemed to mollify him, and I was glad because he looked a little nervous about meeting more humans. “Just let me do the talking—I’m sure everything will be just fine, once they get to know you.”
We walked around the back of the clinic, rounding the corner of the kennels and dog runs in order to enter through the back door. Bobby noticed all the dog carcasses and skeletons in the runs and kennels, and let out a long sigh.
“Man, humans do some messed up shit.”
“I agree, but I gotta say that after watching you gut that guy last night, that might be the pot calling the kettle black.”
He stuck his lower lip out and squinted one eye. “Point taken. But you have to admit, that punter had it coming.”
“No arguments here.” As we approached the building, the back door opened and Captain Perez walked out. Before I could open my mouth to introduce Bobby to her, she pulled out a pistol and shot him in the chest.
SEVEN
COUNTRY
I LOOKED AT HER IN SHOCK for a moment, and then drew down on her with my HK. “Drop the pistol—now!”
She rolled her eyes and held the weapon up for me to see. It was an air pistol, similar to ones I’d used as a kid for match competition. I looked over at Bobby to see the extent of the damage. The kid was clutching his chest with one hand, and had a syringe dart in the other. He was looking back and forth from me, to the doc, to the dart in his hand, and his eyes were sort of unfocused and glazing over.
“Oh, man, that was so uncool.” He looked at the doc with an expression of disbelief on his face. “Man, he said you were a bitch, but I wanted to at least give you the benefit of a doubt.” Then he looked at me and shook his head. “Scratch, I don’t feel so good.” At that, the kid collapsed to the pavement.
I looked at the doc and gestured with the barrel of my weapon. “I said, drop it.” There was a menace in my voice that I don’t think she’d heard previously. She rolled her eyes and complied.
“Oh, relax, it’s just a sedative. He’ll be fine in a few hours. Maybe less, considering his metabolism.”
I looked down and saw that the kid was still semiconscious, but he was definitely out of it and not having a good day. I still kept the gun on her, because frankly I was a little pissed. “Mind explaining to me why you did that?”
“Mind explaining to me why you brought a wild animal home?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe, her expression defying me to object. “That thing next to you is as dangerous as any large wild animal, and I’d say even more dangerous than a full-grown tiger or lion.”
“Lions don’t wear Wayfarers and wax poetic about catching the perfect wave.”
She rolled her eyes at me again. I was starting to get annoyed. “You might think he means us no harm, and the truth is that you may be right. However, he may not be able to help himself when the full moon rolls around.”
I dropped the barrel of the weapon a few inches. “You sure seem to know an awful lot about lycanthropes. Mind telling me how you came by this specialized knowledge?”
“Help me carry him in, and I’ll tell you want you want to know. But I’m not saying a word until he’s locked up.”
“Good luck with that, because I’ve seen what he can do, and I honestly don’t think there’s anything here that can hold him.”
“Well, then we’re just going to have to keep him sedated.”
I wouldn’t let her drug the kid again, but on the other hand I wanted to find out why she knew so much about ‘thropes. So I grunted in reply, figuring she’d take it for a yes. Then I grabbed the kid under the arms and she took his legs. We carried him in and set him down on one of the exam tables, and then sat down in the back of the clinic. I glared at her for a moment, and then decided to break the ice.
“How’s Gabby doing?”
She scratched her head absently, and I noticed the exhaustion on her face for the first time. “She’s fine, healing up well. Glad you asked. But I’m worried that if we stay here much longer, the pack is going to find us. They tend to range all up
and down the Corridor, and it’s just a matter of time before they catch our scent and track us here.”
“Is she in any condition to travel?”
The doc nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, she’s healing up nicely. She’s young, and strong.” I could tell she was hiding something though, something related to Gabby. Considering that she’d been shot just a few days prior, I had a hard time believing she’d be back on her feet so soon. The doc was hiding something from me, and I was sick and tired of playing games.
“Tell me how you know so much about the occult species.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and let out a long sigh. “Alright. I’d have to tell you this eventually, but I didn’t want it to be so soon.” She leaned forward with her hands clasped, elbows on her knees. “How much do you know about how we ended up with an occult invasion?”
I shrugged. “Same as everyone else, mostly rumor and speculation. Some folks say the government was experimenting with Them, had ‘em locked up in a facility somewhere and they all got out when the power failed.”
“Okay, not the first time I’ve heard that story.” She sat back and leaned on the table, while I kept my hands on my weapon and continued to stare her down. “You know, there’s actually some truth to it.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “And you would know this, how?”
There was a pregnant pause, and then the captain started fidgeting with an old clipboard on the counter next to her. She looked up at me, and I couldn’t tell if it was regret or remorse on her face, but from the looks of it she was carting around some serious baggage. “What if I told you I was involved with a top secret military project to study the occult species, before the War?”
I nodded, stone-faced. “I’d say that explains a lot. Go on.”
“We worked out of Sam Houston, but all the research was done in a super-hush-hush facility on Camp Bullis. The facility had all sorts of test subjects there. Vamps, zombies, ‘thropes—and, other things.”
“And the military had you doing research on the ‘thropes.”
She nodded. “Officially my jacket says I’m a DVM, but I also have a PhD in biomedical research, with a specialization in gene therapy. I was working on ways to enhance Special Forces soldiers using specific genetic traits inherent to the lycanthrope species.”
“‘Species,’ as in plural?”
“Yes. To our knowledge, there are multiple lycanthropic species extant. However, the most common types are canids, specifically wolf-human hybrids. We thought that the best chances for success with our experiments would be with the wolf-types, so we focused most of our research there.”
I leaned back against the counter and set my rifle on the countertop. “So, what you’re saying is that the government was responsible for the huge cluster we’re in right now. Tell me something I didn’t already suspect.”
She shook her head gently. “Not exactly. You see, the occult species have been showing up here and there on planet Earth throughout history. Take werewolves for instance; there are legends that have survived over the centuries indicating their appearances are cyclical. They’ll show up for a few hundred years, and then disappear for several centuries, only to show up again. The Neuri of ancient Scythia. Lycaon from Greek mythology. The Úlfhednar of Scandanavia. The Beast of Gevaudan. The sasquatch and skin walker legends of North America. We searched for patterns, and couldn’t find anything—at least, not until the bombs dropped.”
“What the hell do the nukes have to do with the appearance of these things? I thought you guys were breeding them as part of your experiments.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “Breeding them? Are you mad? We were running our experiments in hopes of finding a way to fight them, should a severe outbreak occur. As you know, they can reproduce, in a manner of speaking, by producing offspring and thralls. However, the thralls are almost always weaker than the original subject who created them. Eventually, by the third or fourth generation, the thralls lose the ability to reproduce.”
That made sense. I’d often wondered why we weren’t completely overrun with the damn things already. “Okay, but if that’s true then how do you explain how we have so many of them running around now?”
“That’s the thing—at first, we couldn’t find any pattern to explain where they were coming from or what was causing them to appear at certain times, and not at others. Finally, we noticed an increase in reports of occult species sightings and attacks following increases in solar flare activity. The team I was working with developed a hypothesis that, if these creatures were extra-dimensional in origin, that the increased solar flare activity could be somehow facilitating their ‘crossing over’ from another dimension of existence.”
“You’re talking that they came from another dimension?”
“Yes—that’s the only logical explanation, since there’s no evidence of any occult species in the fossil record. They’d have to have come from someplace other than Earth.”
This was all getting pretty far out there, but after my first brush with the undead, I’d decided that anything was possible. “I think I see where you’re going with this—you think that the bombs somehow damaged the barrier between their world and ours.”
She smacked the counter with her fist. “Exactly! And that’s the good news—in every single instance of increased solar activity followed by increased occult species sightings, the sightings and attacks died down within a few decades, or they tapered off over the course of a few centuries.”
“That doesn’t sound like good news for us. I mean, according to your theory, by the time these things start to die off, humans could become extinct as a species.”
The doc raised a finger in the air, and her face lit up. “Yes—but if the theory holds true, then that also means we have a chance to either hold out or even kill them off, since their numbers and means of reproducing are finite.”
I wiggled my hand back and forth. “Sounds iffy, doc. But even a small bit of hope is hope.” I leaned back and decided to drop the $100,000 question. “So, how do I fit into all this?”
About that time, Gabby came walking in. She still looked a little green around the gills, but she was definitely in better shape than any person had a right to be after having a bullet dug out of their gut. The doc nodded at her. “There’s your answer.”
“I don’t understand.”
Gabby came in, pulled up a chair, and looked me up and down. “You look like shit.”
I laughed. “So do you. How’s that bullet wound?”
She looked at the doc. “Should I show him?”
The captain cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head. “If you feel comfortable sharing it.”
Gabby nodded. “I trust him.” She lifted up her shirt and pulled the bandage away. Just twenty-four hours prior, there had been a large incision in her abdomen. I’d been there when the doc opened her up to remove that bullet, and I saw her get stapled up. Now, there was barely a scar.
“Holy shit. She’s one of your experiments.”
The doc looked at Gabby and placed a hand on her arm. It was a tender gesture, and full of the kind of affection that a mother or older sister has for a young child. She turned and looked at me with less of the fevered enthusiasm of a research clinician, and more of the benevolence of a family physician in her eyes.
“Gabby was brought by her uncle to a FEMA camp a few months after the bombs fell. She was dying of radiation poisoning and there was nothing that conventional medicine could do. I convinced her uncle that I could save her, but that it would be risky. He told me that if I didn’t he’d put a car tire around my neck and set it on fire.”
“Sounds like a charming guy.”
Gabby smirked and rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t have done it.”
The doc chuckled. “Back then, I think he would have. Taking care of you, raising you, I think it changed him for the better, Gabby.” She looked off out the window. “Regardle
ss, he agreed to allow me to try and help her. It was the only chance she had. So, we took her to the research facility on Bullis, and I saved her life. Within days of the therapy, she evidenced a complete recovery. A modern medical miracle.”
“Hold up—you mean to tell me this facility is still intact?”
“Yes, absolutely. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I can give humanity what it needs to turn the tide in this war. I can make you superhuman.”
EIGHT
CARE
“YOU WANT TO DO ME what with what?”
“I’m serious, Scratch—I can make you more than human, enough to give you and others the edge you need to face the occult species threat head on. No more running from Them. No more hiding in the sticks. This technology has the potential to turn the tide in this war, and save the human race from extinction.”
Whiskey tango foxtrot. This was all just a little too much to take for me at the moment, and I was, for once in my life, speechless. One thing was for sure though: I didn’t want anyone jacking with my DNA, and especially not to inject me with something that came from Them. Uh-uh, no way, no freaking how.
I stood up. “I’m going to go check on Bobby.”
The captain stood up as well, and took a step forward with a hand extended. “I know this is asking a lot, but I can assure you, the procedure is completely benign. There will be no personality changes, and you’ll be the exact same person, just faster, stronger, and you’ll heal more quickly.”
At that moment, I didn’t know whether to laugh, or punch her in the face. “Are you freaking insane? You can’t play God with people—I mean, we’re talking potentially altering the gene pool for the entire human race. You have no idea what the repercussions will be for the generations of humans who’ll come after us. We could end up as a race of monsters ourselves.”
Gabby crossed her arms and glared at me. “Do I look like a monster to you? Remember, I saved your life! Would a monster do that?”
