“Good god, Dallas. Guess I just get to keep on cleaning. Best day ever. Go take a shower and bag up those clothes,” she instructed, referring to the rags that still hung on his large frame. “They’re ruined anyway, so we’ll burn them later.”
Dallas had obliged. After a long, steaming shower, he returned downstairs wearing a fresh pair of jeans, tee-shirt, and a cleanish flannel. He found Lois wiping the last bits of dust from his entertainment center and stood in amazement at the transformation of his home. Gone were the empty pizza boxes, beer cans, and random piles of junk mail. He no longer felt the menacing stares of over-sized dust bunnies, and a lemony scent flooded his sensitive nose. Without the detritus of his bad habits cluttering up the kitchen and living room, the space looked twice as big.
“Wow. You did a helluva job, Lois. I mean, this is really, really,” he sniffed again, “lemony. You didn’t need to do all this though. I would’ve done it…”
Lois crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Dallas. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. If I’m going to be stuck here for the next twenty-four hours, I’d rather not be sitting in month-old pizza grease.”
“Twenty-four hours? What do you mean?” Dallas asked, puzzled.
“The full moon. Tonight’s the third night, which means you’re going to turn again. To make sure you don’t run out and eat anyone else, Stanley and I are going to tie you up, lock you in the basement, and make sure you stay put until it’s over.”
For a moment, the old Dallas popped up through the confused self-loathing he’d been wrapped in since waking up at the cabin covered in blood and full of Dan.
“Sure you can tie old Dallas up, but only if he gets to return the favor.”
“Keep your paws off my girl, you dirty dog,” Herb snipped, causing Dallas to whip his head around.
“Herb’s here again? Where’d you put him?”
In response, Lois pointed at the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Oh, right. Hiya, Herby.” Dallas waved at the beer can. “Don’t you worry, buddy. I won’t be making any moves on your girl. Actually, I got somebody kinda special…”
Dallas’s brief ray of humor was bowled over by a dark realization.
“Oh crappers. My girlfriend’s gonna kill me. Like, for real kill me.”
Lois levelled a dark stare at Dallas, every bit of her glare wrapped in cold judgment.
“So tell me, Hero of Trappersville. How does that feel, knowing someone wants to kill you for no reason other than they don’t like what you’ve become? What you are?”
“Dammit, Lois, don’t you get it? I killed a guy! I’m a murderer. Me! It doesn’t matter that I don’t know how I turned into a werewolf. I am one, and now Aletia and the Society have to put me down.”
Dallas stopped talking, a new realization shoving its way forward. It was absolutely true. The Society had to put him down, and he was a member of the Society. Filled with sudden purpose, he lurched toward the closet. Pulling it open, he retrieved his hunting rifle.
“Dallas, what are you doing?” Lois asked.
“Yeah, what the heck, Dallas?” Herb echoed.
Dallas checked the clip and found it loaded. Grunting in satisfaction, he turned and headed for the front door.
Time to end this once and for all, he promised.
“Dallas! Stop. Don’t be stupid,” Lois yelled, but he ignored her completely. Grasping the handle, he yanked open the front door and almost collided with Stanley. The other man was carrying two loaded grocery bags and struggled mightily to keep from dropping them as he pulled up short to avoid colliding with Dallas.
“Oh, s-sorry, Dallas,” Stanley offered. “What’cha doing? I g-got you some food.”
“Out of the way, Stanley. Thanks for always being a good buddy and sorry things worked out this way.” Shouldering his way past his confused friend, Dallas walked down his front drive, shifting the rifle in his grip as he walked.
Shit. Bullets ain’t silver, he realized suddenly. Stopping, he hollered back at the house.
“Stanley! Will regular bullets kill a werewolf when it’s not a werewolf, or do they have to be silver?”
Always helpful, Stanley hollered back from where he still stood in the doorway.
“Oh, um. I th-think regular bullets do alright when the werewolf’s a p-person. You need silver when they’re a wolf though. I know that for sure.”
“Shut up and get out of the way,” Lois screamed, pushing her way past Stanley and running after Dallas. “He’s going to kill himself!”
Knowing he didn’t have much time, Dallas turned to make sure the blast would go away from the house.
No sense hurting anyone else, he thought, bringing the barrel up under his chin and stretching his arm, thumb on the trigger.
“Noseph ruthera, bruckallow zizith! Limbs of stone, can’t move alone!” Lois screamed.
Dallas thought it was a funny thing to be the last thing he heard on earth and squeezed the trigger.
For a moment, he thought that he had pulled the trigger, blown his head off, and now was stuck in some lame afterlife that was suspiciously similar to the life he’d just left. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense though, so Dallas concluded he hadn’t yet shot himself and made a fresh attempt.
Bang! he hoped, but again, nothing happened.
Bang, bang, double-blammy! Pull the goddamn trigger. C’mon, thumb. What are you waiting for?
Again, no luck. The barrel was under his chin, and his thumb was on the trigger, but Dallas couldn’t seem to finish the act.
I ain’t no coward! I’m not scared. he screamed, belatedly realizing that he didn’t actually scream since he couldn’t move his mouth. Or head. Or anything, really. He was just,
Stuck! I can’t move. What the hell is going on here?
“I’m taking the gun, Dallas. Then I’ll reverse the spell. When I do, you’re going go back in the house, sit on the couch, and not, I repeat, not do anything stupid. Okay?”
It was rather impressive how Lois’s voice managed to sound at once very calm, very reasonable, and also very, very pissed off. Dallas felt a tug remove his thumb from the trigger. He felt the weight leave his outstretched arm as the gun was lifted away, and the peculiar cold spot on his neck where the barrel had pressed into skin started to warm.
“That’s awesome!” he heard Herb exclaim. “Can you do anything to him right now?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Lois responded. “The spell holds the person in a sort of stasis. Automatic things still work, like his heart and lungs. He just can’t voluntarily move any muscles.”
“So we could maybe pose him or something? Dress him up?”
“Oh, h-heck yeah!” Stanley chimed in. “Make him a ballerina. I want to see a Dallas ballerina.”
Lois walked in front of Dallas, still holding the rifle. “What do you think, Dallas? You up for a little humiliation at the hands of your friends? I know! We could take pictures, too. Dress you up like a schoolgirl or put you in a Vikings jersey and post those pictures all over town.” She leaned in, a wicked smile curling her lips but not reaching her eyes.
“Would you like that, Dallas? No? Then remember, I can do this to you whenever I want. When I reverse the spell, you behave. No suicide attempts. No trying to fly the coop. If you do, we’ll be relentless in our pursuit of humiliation. Comprende?”
Stepping back, Lois handed the rifle to Stanley, taking Herb in trade. “Put that away, would you, Stan? Oh, and empty the clip. Only a bona fide idiot keeps a loaded gun in his coat closet.”
Closing her eyes, Lois took a deep breath.
“I love it when she gets all witchy.” Herb whispered.
“Shhh. I need to concentrate. I wouldn’t want to accidentally turn his insides to Jell-O or swap his ears with his kidneys.”
What? Whadaya mean, ‘swap my ears with my kidneys?’ You know what you’re doing, right? Please say you know what you’re doing. Dallas’s thoughts turned into panicked critters
that scurried around his skull in mad circles.
“Just kidding. I know what I’m doing. Now.”
A gentle hush descended as Lois spread her arms and waggled her fingers at Dallas.
“Perchun modund. Ento dally. No more fun, spell undone.”
Dallas’s thumb twitched, and his eyes flinched shut, but of course nothing happened. He sucked in a large breath and started crafting it into a royal ass-chewing, but a single glance from Lois put the kabash on that.
“Okay, fine. Relax, will ya? I’m over it,” he muttered, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Although I’m sorely tempted for a quick game of kick the can, you read me Herb?”
“Loud and clear, Dallas.” Herb said, his tinny voice full of smiles. “I’m just glad you’re back.”
Chapter 30
Dallas and Lois sat on the couch while Stanley perched on a chair and Herb rested among a large collection of empty beer cans. Dallas was glad Stanley’s trip to the Get’n’Gobble had included grabbing a case of beer. After the day he was having, he certainly needed one, or as it happened, six, going on seven.
“You seriously have no idea how it happened?” Lois asked again.
Dallas shook his head tiredly. “None whatsoever. I mean, does anybody know what they were doing a month ago? I know I was probably drinking a lot, and there was this girl from Chicago I hooked up with a while back, and, um.” Dallas scratched his head, face screwed up in thought. “Oh, wait. I fixed Jerry’s thermostat around that time, too. No werewolves though. Not even a dog bite.”
Stanley’s eyes lit up. “Oh, the d-dogs! I forgot to tell you. They’re in the back woods.”
“What?” Dallas yelped.
“Yup. I got to thinking, well, if you was the werewolf we’ve been looking for after all, then it was p-probably you that got those dogs. You know, the ones that went missing. I found ‘em back behind your house. Well, what’s left, I mean.”
Dallas’s shoulders slumped. Some small part of him had still hoped this was all a terrible mistake, but now Stanley had just taken a big, fat crap on that possibility.
“Well, this is just great. Just frickin’ great,” he griped. “Not to mention totally unfair. I was supposed to be the monster hunter, not the frickin’ monster.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Herb said. “Near as I can figure, a mosquito that drank from an old and really powerful vampire did me in.”
“There’s over a hundred seventy k-kinds of skeeters,” Stanley offered helpfully. “That’s why you got to get the DEET. Maybe a skeeter that bit a werewolf got you, Dallas.”
“Maybe,” Lois conceded. “But it doesn’t quite work, does it? I mean, mosquitos drink blood, vampires drink blood. Makes a weird kind of sense. But a werewolf?”
Dallas stood and walked into the kitchen, a dark certainty settling in. Suddenly, he had a very good idea of just what had made him into a damn monster. Since Lois had taken the liberty of putting stuff away, it took a bit to find the glass Mason jar. Luckily, she hadn’t tossed it.
“Mosquito biting a werewolf don’t make much sense, but what about a dog tick?” he asked, holding up the jar for the rest to see.
While Lois, Stanley, and Herb oohed and aahed over the wriggling little parasite, Dallas threw up his hands in disgust.
“Forget about the stupid tick. What am I going to do? Lois, you brought back Herb. Can you do something witchy and make me not a werewolf?”
Lois shook her head sadly. “I honestly don’t think so, Dallas. I told you there was a way to bring Herb all the way back and get him a body again. When I was researching that, I tried to find a way to make him human and not a vampire.”
“Forget it. Being a vamp is way better. Did you see me bowl?”
Lois patted Herb’s can affectionately. “The point is, it seems like magic can move someone between living and dead, but only as themselves, whatever their ‘self’ is. Herb was a vampire. You, a werewolf.”
“So what’s the plan? I mean, there is a plan, right?”
Lois looked at Stanley, and Stanley shrugged.
“For now,” he said apologetically, “we t-tie you up and lock you in the b-basement.”
Dallas’s rambler had an unfinished basement that was about as hospitable as a cave with a roughed in bathroom. Stanley carried down a sturdy wooden chair, and Lois brought down long coils of heavy rope. Dallas grumbled a bit about being trussed up like a pig but didn’t resist. Only a handful of hours ago, he’d been scooping up and burying the remnants of the last person he’d been around in werewolf form. It was just one night. If this is what it would take to keep everyone safe, he’d tough it out.
“These, too,” Lois said, dangling a pair of familiar fuzzy handcuffs. “Can’t be too careful, right?”
Dallas eyed the cuffs skeptically. “I know they look legit, but those are more recreational than practical. I’ll bet even Stanley could bust ‘em.”
“Humor me,” Lois replied, dropping them in Dallas’s lap.
He settled into the chair. “What should I cuff myself to?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just put them on with your hands in your lap. I’ll take care of the rest.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so, Lois and Stanley worked diligently to restrain Dallas. First, his ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. Next, coils of heavy rope were wound around his legs and behind his calves. Soon, his legs were so securely anchored that all he could do was flex his ankles a bit and wriggle his toes. Legs secured, they wound length after length of rope around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides and securing him to the back of the chair.
“T-too tight?” Stanley asked, tugging on the rope.
Dallas shook his head. The experience was definitely getting uncomfortable, but it had nothing to do with the ropes. He could feel the moon drawing closer, a sensation that was at once foreign and familiar.
“Just hurry up and get out of here, would ya? Clock’s ticking.”
Once Dallas was firmly attached to the chair, Lois looped two lengths of rope around a couple of stout four-by-fours supporting the joists, pulled them taut, and tied them off. Like guy-wires securing a tower, he wouldn’t be able to topple the chair over.
“I think that’s the best we can do. Shouldn’t be much longer. Are you okay?” Lois asked, concerned.
“Oh sure,” Dallas replied. “Peachy. Couldn’t be better.” Sighing heavily, he tried to stretch his shoulders, only to find that he truly couldn’t move.
“Couldn’t you just use that spell that makes me freeze?” he asked. “The ropes and all ain’t exactly comfy.”
Lois shook her head. “I can’t risk it. I don’t know if that spell will hold after you change. I know this sucks, but it’s the better option.”
Resigned, Dallas relaxed his muscles as best he could and tried to ignore the queasy claustrophobia that kept swimming in dangerous circles just below the threshold of his control.
“Um, hey Lois? Dallas? Um, you guys down there?” Stanley’s voice called down the stairs.
“Kinda hard for me to go anyplace else, Stan. What’s up?” Dallas replied.
“Um, t-the moon.”
Chapter 31
Pain. Pain so raw it blistered his insides, scraped the blisters off with a rusty wire brush, painted the remaining sores with gasoline, and lit them on fire. As the change gripped Dallas, his spine, ribcage, arms, legs, wrists, and ankles all cracked, split, and reformed, but the binding ropes left no room for his body to expand. Like tree roots pushing up from under the sidewalk’s concrete, Dallas’s altering body pushed against his restraints and found them unyielding. It was like being squeezed by a vice or run through a sausage grinder. Considering the two, he decided it was actually quite a bit like both.
“Help!” he moaned, the word drooping and warping as his jaw stretched and lowered. It didn’t matter though. There was no one to hear him. He was completely and utterly alone in his agony.
As suddenly as it started, the fie
rce pain of the change finally passed, leaving only the more natural pain of ropes cutting deep into his flesh. Dallas gasped, his breath coming in shallow pants. He was so tightly bound that even breathing was a chore. Angry at being trapped and desperate to see the moon, he flexed his muscular limbs and heard the ropes creak in response. A low growl burbling up from deep in his gut, he flexed again, straining every muscle in his transformed body. This time, his keen ears heard the ropes groan from stress and the popping of tiny threads as they split and tore. Panting with exertion, he braced himself for one more attempt.
The ropes burst, the wooden chair shattered, and Dallas was free. Only the flimsy, furry handcuffs held him. Rising up to his full height, head grazing the joists above, he rolled his shoulders and readied his arms to snap the links that bound his wrists.
“Hestra numto boll tar dollan! Tawdry trinkets used for fun, heed my words and weigh a ton!” a voice called out, and suddenly he found himself face down on the floor. The cuffs binding his wrists felt like they actually did weigh about two-thousand pounds. Wriggling and scrabbling to get his feet under him, Dallas tried to find the leverage to lift his arms, but the cuffs were too heavy.
“Sorry, Dallas. I was worried the ropes wouldn’t be enough, so I enchanted the hand-cuffs,” Lois called down from the top of the stairs.
Rage boiled up and Dallas roared. He was hungry. He needed to feed. Scooting around, he managed to get into a sitting position, strangely bent legs on either side of where his wrists were firmly anchored to the floor. Flexing his shoulders and back, he pulled, but the cuffs didn’t budge. Flexing again, he heard tendons stretch and pop.
“Dallas, can you understand me? Try to calm down. You’re going to rip out your arms.” Lois stepped carefully down the stairs while watching Dallas with trepidation.
Trapped. Hungry, he whined.
“Oh, wow. I can understand him,” a voice said. A voice he recognized.
“He’s hungry and pissed. Tell Stanley to bring down some food,” the voice continued.
Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman Page 19
