Rough Sleepers

by Nem Rowan

  I looked down at the mess we had made. Something didn't feel right.

  A strange sensation began to bulge in my chest, a swelling accumulation as though I was about to throw up, and I groaned, clutching at the pain in my chest with my taloned hand. She cried out, dropping the severed head and collapsing to the ground, vomiting a gut's worth of gore and gristle as she struggled against the cramping twinge in her ribs. The wolf we had killed was shrinking back to his human form, the fur retracting into his skin and the size of his body decreasing. Even the head was losing its snout, the whiskers vanishing, the humanlike shape returning. The pain inside me was rising, and in a sudden burst, a black shadow ruptured out of my body, swirling and screeching like a banshee as it whirled in the air, joined by the screaming of the other smoke-like ghost that discharged from my female companion.

  I sank down to the ground, watching lethargically as another gushed out of the dead body before me and accompanied the tornado of black fumes in a nightmarish, twisting dance before finally vanishing through the hole in the ceiling. Every muscle and every bone inside me throbbed. I felt the power seeping away, leaving me feeble and unable to move, then came the cracking and splitting of bone as I began to change back. I rolled onto my side, curling up and screaming as my tail retracted into my spine and the hairs, like thousands of needles, sank back inside, out of sight. The red veil that had covered my mind and shielded it from human thought dissipated slowly, and at last, when the transformation was over, and I lay there naked and covered in blood, I realised it was over.

  The human I had tried to kill was kneeling beside me. I opened my eyes and looked up at Ceri's face and the apprehensive expression he wore, which soon turned to a smile when he saw the conscious recognition in my eyes.

  "Ceri," I breathed, attempting to wipe the sticky blood from my mouth, to no avail.

  "It's gone. The curse is gone."

  "Yeah. We did it. All of us. We did it," I whispered. Tears twinkled in my eyes and before I knew it, I was crying, and his arms were pulling me against his chest.

  We held each other for so long.

  I heard Gabriel and Mecky talking behind me, but I couldn't let him go. He had been brave enough to come close and stick that silver knife into Wallace's chest even though there had been a chance one of us might attack him. I buried my face in his shoulder and sobbed. I didn't have to worry anymore than I might hurt him. I felt so weak, so heavy. The dripping half-healed wounds that mapped me stung in the cool air, but I ignored them. At last, I recognised the strength within Ceri, his own strength, as he held me tightly and kissed me, ignorant of the blood that covered me from head to toe. He had seemed so fragile to me before now. The relief I felt was overwhelming. Amy and Slater's deaths were settled now. Mecky's husband and son were avenged. The cult of Wallace Reed was no more.

  I felt another set of arms enclosing me and noticed that Mecky had joined us, so we welcomed her into a shared hug, the three of us joined in a chorus of tears and laughter. She grinned as she kissed our foreheads and we shook each other back and forth, cheering, our faces dirty with gore.

  "I am not believing it. It is done. I am so happy!" she exclaimed. Her hair was sticking up all over the place and there was blood in her teeth. She looked so funny.

  "For a moment, we thought you weren't coming. I was so scared I'd change and end up eating Ceri," I told her as I tried to hug her with my stump. I didn't care that we were both naked; we had seen it before anyway.

  A piteous groan distracted us from our celebratory conversation; we looked over our shoulders to see Gabriel was lifting Dog-End to his feet, and how badly bruised and beaten his body was. Gabriel took off his coat and draped it round his shoulders, hiding away the damage that Wallace had done to him.

  "Is he gonna be all right?" Ceri inquired as he got up, allowing Mecky and I to use his arms to pull ourselves up, too.

  "Yeah. Jus' a few bruises. Nothin' too bad." Gabriel nodded, but he didn't smile. There was concern in his eyes as he regarded his friend. "You all right, buddy?"

  "Lotta pain..." Dog-End whimpered, clutching the hems of Gabriel's coat closed around himself. "I'll be all right though. No worries."

  "Where the other two gone?" Gabriel questioned, and suddenly we realised that Darnel and Christine were nowhere to be seen.

  That's when we heard screaming coming from above.

  *~*~*

  We rushed up the stairs, leaving behind Dog-End and Gabriel as we ran towards the sound of Christine's voice. Ceri had given me his jacket to put round myself, but Mecky ran ahead of us completely nude, preoccupied with rescuing Christine instead of caring about her modesty.

  "Help! Help! Somebody!" Christine's desperate words echoed, making it hard to pinpoint exactly where she was. At the very top of the stairwell, the wind was knocking an open door against the wall as a chilly breeze swept in from the outside, bringing with it the distorted noise of Christine's pleas for help.

  Mecky was the first through the door, followed closely by Ceri, and so I didn't see quite what the situation was until I had stepped out onto the flat roof of the building, the snow-filled gales blustering across my face and lifting my sticky hair from my shoulders. The darkness was so different to the black and white vision I had grown accustomed to, and all around us there was blackness, further serving to enhance the glaring white light of the full moon above. Christine was standing several metres away, wearing nothing but the tracksuit jacket that Darnel had been wearing earlier; her back was turned, and beyond her, at the very edge of the roof, stood Darnel. He was nude except for his boxer shorts, luminous flecks of snow pitching on his dark ebony skin as he balanced on the low wall that marked the beginning of the steep, three storey drop below. Ceri stepped in front of us, holding us back as Mecky gasped, urgent to run and stop him, but we all knew that if she rushed at him, it might frighten him into jumping.

  "Ceri! Please help!" Christine sobbed as she looked at us over her shoulder. Her hair flew in the lifting winds and tears created shining streaks on her reddened cheeks.

  "Don't come near me!" Darnel shouted threateningly as he pointed a finger at us.

  "Darnel, no! Please don't leave me!" she begged him, but when she took a step towards him, he gestured that he was going to jump.

  "Mecky, stay back," I whispered to her as I reached to grab onto her wrist. She nodded, acknowledging my request and silently hung at my side as Ceri crept forward.

  "Darnel. Come on, boyo, don't do this," he called to the hysterical young man on the other side of the rooftop.

  "Don't tell me what to do!" Darnel shouted back. "You killed Wallace! Why should I do what you say! You took away my best friend! You took away my power!"

  "Wallace wasn't your friend, kid! Wallace was a confused, lonely man!" Ceri responded.

  "You had no rights to kill him!" Darnel cried, but his voice cracked into a whimper and fresh tears trickled down his face. He didn't move as Ceri stepped closer, close enough that he was side by side with Christine.

  "He was killing innocent people!"

  "They weren't innocent." Darnel sniffed, rubbing his wet nose in his wrist.

  "Darnel. Come on, boyo. You don't really want to jump, do you? What about Christine?" Ceri reasoned as he put his arm round her trembling shoulders. "Who's gonna take care of her if you kill yourself, eh?"

  "I can't take care of her if I'm not a wolf!" he wailed. "Without it, I-I'm just a weak human! People won't respect me no more!"

  "Yes, they will. Give them a cause to respect you. Show them that you're strong, that you can look after the girl you love and work hard to be successful. If you die now, you won't have any of those opportunities. Suicide isn't the answer; it won't make things better. Think of all the happy memories you could be making together? Christine won't have any of those if you go now," Ceri spoke to him softly.

  "Darnel, please...!" Christine whimpered. Her feet kept shuffling, her desire to run to Darnel and hug him evident, but Ceri's hand on her should
er held her back.

  "I-I can't...I can't..." Darnel stammered. For a moment it seemed he would step forward away from the ledge.

  My heart was pounding like crazy and I'm sure everyone else's were, too. Suddenly, Darnel turned and vanished over the edge. Everything sank into slow motion, the vision of his body disappearing from view, Christine tearing herself free of Ceri's grasp and darting after him, and in an instant, she had leapt over the edge, too. Mecky's cry deafened my ear. Snow crunched under our bare feet as we charged forward. Ceri lunged against the ledge, almost losing his balance and tipping over himself. Then in an instant, everything sped up and I found myself looking down over the side of the building. Rusting dumpsters, smashed up tables and dumped rubbish littering the cracked asphalt three storeys below. Darnel swinging from Christine's grasp, and Christine's ankles squeezed tightly in Ceri's gnarled hands. Christine was screaming, begging Darnel to hold on.

  "I'm sliding! I'm sliding!" Ceri yelled as his boots began to skid on the icy ground. I grabbed onto his torso, bracing my feet against the low wall to prevent him from going over with them and groaning as I strained to hold fast. Without the curse inside me, my strength had dissipated with it and it took ten times the effort I had grown accustomed to.

  "Pull up!" Mecky commanded as she leaned over the edge and took hold of Christine's bare legs.

  "I'm pulling!" I gasped, arching my back in a bid to drag Ceri's body with me.

  Somehow, we managed to lift their combined weight. Christine's shrieking didn't quieten, even after we struggled to drag her up onto the roof, Mecky and Ceri reaching to grasp Darnel by his arms and legs so that they could lift him up after her. With a thump, they dropped him onto the roof and Christine threw herself onto him, grabbing him round the neck in a frantic bear hug. Wiping a crust of snow from my eyebrows, I put my arm around Ceri and leaned against him, Mecky standing beside us as the three of us panted noisily from the exertion. Mecky had grazed her elbows on the concrete and fresh blood was smeared down her arms. She looked tired.

  "I'm so sorry!" Darnel wept into Christine's shoulder as he hugged her back. He must have bumped his head on the side of the building because his brow was bloodied. She kissed his face over and over, the both of them shivering and overwhelmed with despair.

  "It's okay! It'll be all right!" She promised him as she kissed his eyes. "Don't leave me, okay! We'll take care of each other. It's gonna be all right."

  Thirty

  Digging a hole in the frozen earth was hard work for a human. We took turns, stabbing the spade into the soil, steam puffing through clenched teeth and sweat beading on our foreheads. I felt the cold more than ever. Christine sat with Darnel in the back of Mecky's car, her arms wrapped around him as he slumped next to her, fragile and timid. Funny how he said he was the one who needed to care for her, and yet here she was supporting him when he needed her most. I knew they would be happy together now, without Wallace interfering with them, although in retrospect, it was because of him that they had met in the first place.

  It was fortunate that we had stored some spare clothing in the boot of the car, because otherwise Mecky would have caught herself a cold in this poor weather. It was something you learned to do when you were a werewolf, because you never knew when a change of clothes might come in handy after a night of running wild in the moonlight. Wrapped up in a coat and scarf with a hat pulled over her head, Mecky seemed to have lost some of the energetic vitality that had once propelled her, and the animal glint to her eyes had gone with it. I assumed mine had, too.

  I felt weaker than before, flimsy and heavy. I pulled the hood of my jacket up over my hair to keep the snow off, standing with my hand in my pocket to keep it warm as we watched Ceri taking his turn to dig. I was still plastered in dried blood under my clothes; only my face was clean after taking the time to wash it with some tissue and water. Wallace's body lay on the ground a few feet away, wrapped in bin liners and packing tape, the little LED camping light illuminating the glossy plastic that hid his decapitated form. Snow was starting to form a thin blanket over him.

  Gabriel and Dog-End had left some time ago on the back of Dog-End's motorcycle. He was badly wounded, so Gabriel chose to drive for him.

  "Now ya owe me twice." Gabby grinned, his palm clapping into Ceri's as they shook hands enthusiastically before pulling each other into a rough hug.

  "That'll be two blocks of cheese then." Ceri laughed, and the two of them cackled and whacked each other on the back. After another brief hug, Ceri released him, and Gabriel turned towards the mud-spattered Harley Davidson where Dog-End was stooped, his body sagging with the energy it took to prop himself up.

  "Hope we'll see ya again soon." He smiled at each of us as Gabriel climbed onto the bike and turned the key in the ignition.

  Ceri had to help Dog-End onto the bike, holding him steady as he lifted one leg over the saddle and sat behind his best friend with a grimace of agony. We waved goodbye as Gabriel revved the engine before turning the bike and rolling off over the field of dead grass towards the desolate road, the ground lit up by the headlight and a trail of smoke from the exhaust hanging in the air. Snow swirled around them as they disappeared from view, leaving us standing by the car and wondering what to do next. That's when we had come to the decision that it would be a good idea to bury Wallace out here where no one could find him.

  When the hole was deep enough, we dragged him into it and he landed with a thud in the bottom before Ceri took up the spade again and started tipping clumps of earth back on top. It was a long process. But, I found it therapeutic somehow. Perhaps because I knew that the body laying in the bottom of that hole was never going to come back and attack me again. We were safe now. I could finally report myself as found, take back possession of the club and find out where Amy and Slater were buried, without the fear of turning into a monster again. The knowledge that it was over kept washing in and out of me like a tide, switching me between calm and tearful.

  As I took the spade and finished filling the hole with mud, I thought of Amy and Slater. Imagined their ghosts appearing near to me, glad that they could finally go to heaven now that they knew I was safe, and I didn't need them to protect me anymore. I was sad to see them go, but I would rather they were at peace. I was at peace now, too, and I had my whole life with Ceri to look forward to. I would always miss them, always think of them, my best friend and my baby girl, forever in my heart.

  "Well... Anyone wanna say anything... Y'know, like a funeral?" I prompted as Ceri, Mecky and I stood around the mound of dirt we had finished shovelling.

  "Not really. What am I like to say? He is asshole and deserving to be dead?" Mecky glanced at me, at first with a stern frown, but then she smirked.

  "Well yeah, you could say that." I laughed, both of us grinning with amusement.

  "How about we say something nice, hmm?" Ceri suggested. He seemed less entertained by the situation than we did. "How about you say something about Wally, not Wallace."

  Mecky's smile faded and she looked down, seeming embarrassed by what she had said. I nodded in agreement.

  "Okay. Well, Wally was...kind of odd. Umm, but he was very friendly. He always tried to make friends and listen when people were sad or hurt. I guess, if he has any family out there somewhere, he will surely be missed," I improvised. There was a silent pause and the wind swept between us, flapping our clothing and blowing wafts of snow upon our faces.

  "Wally was kind man. Not like Wallace. I am sad for him that he become this way. Sorry Wally. Please rest now," Mecky eventually said. This time, she sounded genuinely sad and her downcast eyes were hidden by her snow-speckled eyelashes. "Maybe you are seeing Piotr and Stefan on other side. Say hello for Mecky."

  Ceri took the stolen bunch of keys from his pocket and placed them down at the head of the grave since we didn't have any flowers we could put there. Beside them he placed the lantern, switching it off and casting us into the dimness of the night. He took hold of my hand and reached for M
ecky's, clasping it in his other as the three of us looked down at the disturbed ground at our feet. For a few minutes, none of us said a word. It was a very strange situation; I felt a disconcerting mixture of sorrow and joy, and when I looked up at Ceri, he smiled at me reassuringly.

  We didn't speak even as we turned and headed towards the car, Mecky opening the door and startling Christine and Darnel who hadn't heard her coming. I got into the back seat and put my arm around Christine, giving her a comforting hug as she beamed up at me. Her face was puffy from all the crying she had done. With Ceri in the front passenger seat and the engine chugging, Mecky turned the heaters on full blast, blowing a welcome wave of hot air around the frosty space of the car, and as we sighed with relief, she put the radio on. As if it was fate, Bonnie Tyler was on air and she turned it up, cheering and roaring the car forward to the distant road as the eye of the full moon gazed down upon us.

  *~*~*

  We took Darnel home first. He was reluctant to leave Christine's side, so we had to coax him out of the car, promising that they would see each other again very soon. She held him in her arms, rocking him from side to side as she showered him with kisses; eventually, he allowed her to lead him up to the front door of his house. When she was certain he was calm enough for her to go, she hurried to join us back at the car and we waited in the dark, watching as he rang the doorbell. For a few minutes he stood there shivering in the cold, until finally the door opened, and an older man peered through the gap. I guessed that it was Darnel's dad because they looked so alike.

  The man's face lit up with astonishment and he threw his arms round his son, the two of them embracing under the light of the streetlamps as Darnel's mother came rushing out of the hallway in a dressing gown, her high-pitched screams audible over the blustering of the wind. A young girl with her afro hair in neat braids and a little boy with a shaved head came out, too, all of them surrounding Darnel in their pyjamas and slippers, tears shimmering on their cheeks and their voices filled with bittersweet joy. His mother lifted him off his feet as she hugged him tightly against her bosom and his small siblings clustered around him, chirping questions and laughing, their hands pawing at his bloodstained clothes.