“Gyms are for girls,” Dan answered. “I’ve just got a naturally strong arm. Part of the package.”
Dallas noticed Stanley’s eyes go a tad wider. Sensing he was on the right track, he offered another question.
“Naturally strong. Uh huh. Hey, you smell that, Dan? What is that?”
Dan shrugged, rolled, picked up the seven, huffed at the injustice of being a top-tier athlete forced to bowl in mediocre conditions, and walked back over to tick his score sheet.
“You noticed, too? Rhonda must have broken out a new tub of cheap perfume. Smells like a whore house in late July.”
Stanley gasped. “I c-can’t smell nothing,” he whispered, his awe laced with a hint of fear.
“You can’t?” Dan exclaimed. “Ugh. I’m half-inclined to shove bar napkins up my nose.”
Dallas gave Stanley a surreptitious thumb’s up. Rising, he picked up his own ball and rolled an easy strike.
“Crazy days lately, don’t you think?” he asked in a conversational tone. “You heard about those dogs going missing last night?”
Fancy Dan took a moment to answer. He was still staring at the pin deck on Dallas’s lane where ten pins used to be standing.
“Lucky roll. Yeah, I heard about the dogs. So?”
“Well, seems kind of strange, a bunch of dogs getting snatched up like that,” Dallas drawled. “What would someone have against the neighborhood mutts?”
“Dog fighting. Police busted up a ring in Milwaukee a few years back. Probably some unsavory types came through town, grabbed those five dogs, and bolted. Sheriff can look all he wants, but I doubt he’ll find much.”
“Five d-dogs, you say?” Stanley asked in his best Columbo voice. “I heard it was four. Two huskies, a Malamute, and a Rottweiler. F-four, not five.”
Dan sniffed. “Four, five, whatever. Now be quiet. I’m trying to bowl.”
While Fancy Dan rolled a seven, cursed again, and picked up the spare, Stanley leaned in and whispered.
“Ask him about the b-bite,” Stanley encouraged. “You just ask him.”
Dallas casually stood and picked up his ball again. With a quick approach, he released the ball and tweaked his thumb at the last moment. The ball spun wildly and curved into the gutter about halfway down the lane.
“Crappers,” he groused. “You must be right, Dan. These lanes do feel a bit dry. Of course, it could be my arm. Got bit the other day, and it hurts like the dickens.”
Dan snorted. “Figures. Always looking for excuses, aren’t you? Man up, Dallas. Maybe you just aren’t the bowler you think you are.”
Something in Dallas’s gut turned, and a snarl leapt to his lips, but he forced a smile instead.
“Yeah, you’re right, I guess. Just a shitty roll. You gotta admit though, a bite on the rolling arm could sure mess with a guy’s game.”
“Maybe with your game,” Dan sneered. “Professionals like me don’t let something like that interfere. Professionals know how to play through the pain.” Pushing back a loudly patterned sleeve, Dan brandished a large gauze square held in place with athletic tape.
“I got bit by a dog, but you don’t hear me making excuses. You know, for such a manly man, you sure do act like a little baby.”
“At least I know how to make a baby!” Dallas shot back. “The last time you tried, you bruised the poor girl’s belly button.”
“Whoa, whoa, now,” Stanley jumped in. “Let’s n-not get mean.”
“Shut up, Stanley,” the two men snapped in unison.
Dan crossed his arms across his chest, which was a bit disconcerting. The crazy patterned fabric made it look like his arms just disappeared.
“Are you two done?” he said with a sneer. “I need to roll.”
Dallas grabbed his ball in one hand and Stanley’s arm in the other.
“Yeah, you do that, Dan. Keep on rollin’,” Dallas said, dragging Stanley away from the lane. Once they were safely away, he added under his breath, “I hope you enjoy it, werewolf Dan, ‘cause your bowling days are done.”
Two hours later, Dallas and Stanley watched Fancy Dan exit Bay City Bowlers, stroll across the lot, and climb into a Pontiac Fiero with a custom burnt orange and lime green paint job.
“Man, I hate that car,” Dallas groused before asking if Stanley had the silver rope.
“Yes sir!” Stanley answered, holding up a long, slender chain about the width of a finger. Each link was solid silver, making the length worth thousands. Colton had informed them that it was forged by a jeweler in Poughkeepsie whose brother-in-law was turned into a werewolf during the black out of ‘03. He’d also informed them that he expected to have it returned when they came back through town, or there’d be some serious hell to pay.
“Nice. We’ll tail him, jump him, tie him up in silver, and toss him in the back of Deloris. Once we get him out to the cabin, we’ll wait for the moon to rise. When he goes all wolfy, we’ll put him down. Can’t leave a trace though. It has to look like Dan just up and disappeared. Got it?”
“Yep. I mean, y-yes sir. But, um. Maybe you don’t really n-need me for the down-puttin’ part.” Stanley’s eyes pleaded with Dallas. “Maybe I can just, you know, n-not be there for that.”
Dallas considered his friend. Stanley was as gentle as a stuttering kitten. If he was going to be a monster hunter, he’d have to toughen up at some point. Dallas was about to say just that when he saw Stanley’s lower lip quiver.
“Sure, Stan. That’s no problem at all. From what Colton said, the silver should hold him good. You help me get him into the truck, and I’ll take it from there.”
Relief washed across Stanley’s face. “Th-thanks, Big D. I just… it’s just…”
“I know. Don’t worry about it, buddy.”
“Hey Dallas?” Stanley started.
“Forget about it, Stanley. I said it was okay. Let’s not make it a thing.”
“No, not that. It’s Fancy D-dan. He’s gone.”
Dallas looked up and quickly scanned the parking lot. The orange and green Fiero was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh that’s just frickin’ great. Let’s get over to his house and hope he’s on his way home.”
Deloris’s giant tires spit gravel as Dallas dropped her into gear and roared from the lot. Dan’s trailer home wasn’t far by rural Wisconsin standards, and they made good time thanks to Dallas’s blatant disregard for the speed limit and stop signs. Unfortunately, they only had another hour or so until moonrise. If Dan wasn’t at home, they’d have to find him quick.
“If he’s not in there, maybe we should break in and ch-check out his place,” Stanley suggested. “I mean, we think he’s a werewolf, but maybe we should, you know, d-double check.”
Dallas had pulled his truck over and was getting ready to go the rest of the way in on foot so they wouldn’t be as easy to spot. Killing the ignition, he looked at Stanley with a dark frown.
“What happened to, ‘All the cheese curds in Kenosha?’ You said you were sure he was our wolf. He’s got a bite and he passed the tests.”
“I know, I know,” Stanley backpedaled, “but, j-just in case. I mean, maybe we’ll find them d-dogs, or like, I dunno, something.”
Dallas drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. As much as he hated to admit it, Stanley had a point. He didn’t much like Fancy Dan, but that wasn’t quite reason enough to string him up, drag him to a cabin in the woods, and cut his head off.
“Well, let’s go see what we see,” he decided.
The two men moved as quietly as they could through the trees, approaching Dan’s place from the rear. When they got close, Dallas jogged a short lap around the trailer, looking for the Fiero.
“Shit. Not home,” he complained, returning to where Stanley fidgeted behind a broad oak. “Guess it’s plan B.”
After tip-toeing to the backside of the trailer, Dallas boosted Stanley up so he could peek in a window.
“Any sign?”
“N-nope. All clear,” Stanley repo
rted.
The trailer only had one door. Luckily, Dan didn’t invest as much in home security as he did in his outlandish wardrobe. A well-placed kick busted the jam and sprung the door open. It made a bit of a racket, but that didn’t matter much this far outside of town. Like most of the houses scattered in the woods, Dan didn’t have the inconvenience of nearby neighbors.
Dallas and Stanley stepped inside and stood for a moment in shock. Despite the plain exterior, the inside what about what someone might’ve expected Fancy Dan’s home to look like, assuming that someone expected to see the worst parts of the 1970’s packed into one small trailer.
“Ho. Lee. Crap,” Dallas exclaimed, poking a low-hanging disco ball and picking up a Bee Gees album. “Disco ain’t dead. Fancy Dan’s got it on life support.”
While Stanley rummaged through the kitchen, Dallas worked his way around the living room. After a couple of moments, he stopped and gave a slow whistle.
“Take a look at this…” Dallas whispered, waving Stanley over.
“You got p-proof? Werewolf proof?” Stanley asked excitedly, hurrying to Dallas’s side from where he’d been checking the cupboards for kibble or flea powder.
“Psycho douchenozzle proof, more like it.” Dallas stood looking at a cluster of framed photographs on the paneled wall. Each shot was of a bowling tournament winner from previous years. Doing a quick count, Dan had pictures of the various winners from the past seven tourneys. In each photo, he had taped his own picture over the bowler’s actual face.
Trying to control a tremor of emotion, Dallas plucked one from its nail. Not bothering to pull the back from the frame, he instead whacked it against the wall and shattered the glass. Freeing the snapshot from the broken shards, he looked at the picture from the past summer’s tournament. It was taken near the end of the after-tourney party. Hands shaking with rage, Dallas peeled off the Scotch-taped picture of Dan’s face to reveal his own grinning, drunken mug.
“I don’t care if he’s a werewolf or not. I’ll drag him into the woods and beat him bloody anyway.”
At that moment, Dan stepped in through his busted door, a pistol held unsteadily in front of him.
“Dallas? Stanley? What the hell are you guys doing here? Why’d you bust my door?” He fired off the questions while his finger trembled on the gun’s trigger.
“You get away from those. You just get away from those pictures right now,” he demanded, voice warbling with emotion. “This is a home invasion, and I’m going to shoot. I’m going to shoot you both right now if you don’t step away from my pictures.” Dan’s voice cracked and tears started to well up in his eyes.
“Stanley, now!” Dallas yelled in response. Lurching to the side, he heard the gun pop and the wall paneling crack. Rushing Dan, he tackled him to the floor, knocking the gun away in the process.
To his credit, Stanley didn’t panic. Grabbing up the length of silver chain they’d carried from the truck, he ran toward the struggling men. As Dallas pulled Dan up from the carpet and held him in a tight bear hug, Stanley tried to wind the chain around him.
“S-stop kicking! Just s-stop k-kicking me!” he screamed, trying to pull the chain tight.
“Stop trying to chain me up!” Fancy Dan yelled back, faux alligator loafers jabbing out at Stanley’s knees, gut, and groin. A wild kick finally connected, and Stanley crumpled with a noise part grunt and part squeal. Whipping his head back in the same motion, the back of Dan’s head connected with the bridge of Dallas’s nose. Stars burst and fizzled in Dallas’s eyes, and then Dan was on the move.
Roaring in pain, Dallas lurched after the fleeing man. Panic-fueled adrenalin drove Dan out of the trailer to the grass outside, but his smooth soled loafers didn’t offer much for traction. Trying to cut a zigzag path, he instead went down in a tumble. Dallas jumped from the front stoop and body slammed the smaller man, pressing him down into the mud and leaves.
“Oh god, not my shirt!” Dan squealed. “What are you doing? This is an authentic Domenico Dolce reproduction. I’ll never get this clean. You’re going to pay for this!”
“Shove it, Dan,” Dallas grunted. “I got him, Stanley. Bring the chain, and hurry your alien-probed ass up. He’s harder to hold than a greased up garter snake.”
A few cursing, crying, questioning, and more cursing-packed moments later, Dan was gagged with a shiny polyester necktie and bound with the silver chain, a padlock holding it tight around his arms and chest.
“Help me carry him back to Deloris,” Dallas instructed. Stanley was still whimpering in pain, and tears poured freely from his eyes, but he did as he was told. Once they had Dan securely stashed in the bed of Dallas’s truck, he drove Stan home and dropped him off with instructions to stay put.
“I’ll let you know when it’s done,” Dallas said. “Until then, you just sit tight. Don’t answer the phone, don’t go out for a Diet Mr. Pibb. Nothing. Got it?”
“Okay, D-Dallas. Okay. I’ll just, I’ll stay here. But Dallas,” he managed.
“Yeah, Stan?”
“B-be c-c-careful.”
Dallas nodded, but like most advice that found its way into his ears, he was pretty sure he’d ignore it.
Chapter 27
Dallas’s watch read seven forty three. According to Stanley, moonrise should be right around eight o’clock. After dragging a still kicking Fancy Dan into the decrepit, old cabin the Society had used as their home base, Dallas had trussed him up with some heavy rope and tied him to an exposed stud in a partially open wall.
Looking up through the collapsed ceiling, he considered the autumn sky above. The sun had finally set, leaving the cloudless sky a progressively darkening shade of rich blue. Stars were whispering Morse code to one another, getting more and more vocal with the fading of the light. It was, Dallas realized, a beautiful October evening. For a moment, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. Maybe he shouldn’t be out in the woods with a guy tied to a two by four and wrapped in silver. Maybe he should just walk away from all of this. Put Trappersville and all the stuff from the past few months in his rearview and just head deeper and deeper into the trees.
“Mmrrhph furph foo fooogh wuffmee?”
“Hmmm?” Dallas asked, distracted. “Shut up, will ya? I’m thinking about stuff.”
A few quiet moments passed before Dallas heard panting breath and licking lips. Turning, he saw that Dan had managed to work the tie out of his mouth.
“Look. Whatever this is about, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, or if I did, I didn’t know it was going to piss you off, and I sure as hell didn’t know you were the crazy type. So I’m really sorry, and I won’t do it again, whatever it was. Just please, please let me go.”
Dan’s pleas fell from his mouth in rapid succession, eyes wide with confused fear. Dallas felt a tug at what might have been his conscience, but something Dan said flipped a switch in Dallas, shutting off the remorse he’d been on the verge of feeling a moment before.
“Me the crazy one?” he repeated in indignation. “What was with all those pictures from the bowling tourneys? Those don’t exactly put you in the ‘sane’ category.”
“Aww, c’mon,” Dan whined. “It’s not my fault I’ve been robbed year after year. I should’ve been the winner at least three times, and you know it.”
Dallas stomped over to where Dan sat, bound, mud-splattered, and half-gagged on the worn wooden floorboards of the old cabin. He’d never seen such a pathetic sack of sniveling snot in his entire life. Just looking at Dan made him unreasonably angry. Squatting so his face was level with Dan’s, he leaned in so close their noses almost touched.
“Winners are winners because they won,” he growled, the menace in his voice making Dan blanch. “You can try to rewrite history all you want, but at the end of the day, you’re still a loser.”
Standing, his frustration pushed him into a pace. Back and forth across the small cabin, Dallas’s work boots thunked heavily on the floor.
“I swear, I’ve
about had it with all you monsters trying to make it sound like you’re special, like you deserve something. Herby, the boo hag, and now a goddamn werewolf! Real champions don’t need no supernatural whatever. We just kick ass because that’s who we are. It’s what we worked hard to become. Oh sure. Vampire Herb was such a celebrity. Such a ladies man, such a good cook, such a goddamn good bowler. But what was he before he was a vampire, huh? I’ll tell you what. A loser. A nobody.”
Dallas stopped his relentless pacing and spun to confront Dan.
“And that goes for you, too. Nothing but a loser that thinks it’s okay to try and take what isn’t yours. Like those dogs. Jesus, man. What’s wrong with you? Those dogs belonged to someone. I’ll bet that someone loved each and every one of those mutts, but you didn’t care. You just up and took ‘em. Like Lois. I cared about her, I would’ve been good to her. I know what I’m like, but I would’ve changed. Didn’t get the chance though. Oh no. Mr. ‘I’m really a nice vampire’ Herb had to cut in. He would’ve killed her. I saved her.”
The anger was working its way deeper, its dark and barbed tendrils pushing and ripping into every fiber of his being. His breath was coming faster, and every inch of his skin was starting to itch. His bones ached, and his teeth felt two sizes too large for their sockets.
“Well, too bad for Herby and too bad for you. See, there just happens to be a bona fide Warrior of the Society here. I know it’s a stupid name, but let me tell you, stupid name or not, there’s a whole lotta comeuppance waiting for your punk ass when the moon rises. Just a little bit longer, fancy werewolf, and you’ll get what’s coming.”
During Dallas’s tirade, Dan shrank further and further into himself. Wide, frightened eyes stared, and his mouth worked like a trout pulled from the river.
“I- Holy crap, Dallas. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Werewolf? Dogs? What about Lois?”
Voice shaking with unfettered terror, Dan’s mouth kept running. “I know you staked that vampire, and I’m really glad about that, you know? I mean, hell. I totally agree that Herb shouldn’t have been the bowling champ. We’re on the same page there, aren’t we?”
Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman Page 17
