Could she have been mistaken? Could the creature have been a coyote?
Greg followed her from the hallway and knelt beside her. “We’re gonna get you to the hospital,” he whispered. “It seems you’ve been drugged. Just lie still and relax. You’ll be fine.”
She tried to ask where Billy was, but couldn’t form the words. The world faded around her. Greg touched her shoulder again before her mind went dark.
6
NEVETS DAY ONE
ANOTHER day in this hellhole of a world.
Steven rubbed his throbbing temples. His mouth was dry and tasted like an ashtray. He picked at a persistent, possibly infected, ingrown hair within his full beard until his neck was raw. He sat up and looked around, trying to orient himself to his third different park bench of the week. If there was any benefit to living on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, it was in the number of parks, or more specifically, park benches.
His stomach ached, reminding him of his immediate need for another drink. He had no idea what time it was, but the sun was peeking over the horizon behind the city buildings. His back was stiff, as usual, and he had to take a leak, but that would have to wait until he stretched out his kinks.
As it did every morning when he woke up, his mind drifted to memories of his nine-year-old daughter who he missed so much. It had been more than twenty years since he had seen her, but he could still picture her face as clearly as if he had been with her only days before. His self-pity and regret gave him yet another reason to start his day off with a drink.
The park had become overcrowded with the homeless, and their numbers seemed to grow each day—the poor economy and heartless corporations saw to that. It hadn’t always been that way for Steven. He had been a hard worker at one time. But the world changed while he was in Iraq. Most of the people who passed him on a daily basis thought of him as little more than another drunk mooching off society. He figured they were kind of right, but they didn’t understand any more than his friends had.
Before Iraq, he never had more than an occasional beer, and now he couldn’t stay away from the whiskey. When he started drinking, his friends had told him he needed to get over the past. But they hadn’t lost anyone. They couldn’t see how he only needed to use the booze for a while, that he needed something to dull the pain of seeing his best friend blown to pieces by a roadside bomb. Eventually, he drove them away like everyone else in his life who tried to help him.
Some people would have ended it all after seeing what he had seen, but as hard as the world treated him nowadays, he had two reasons to keep from lying down on the railroad tracks. First and most important, he had dreams of one day seeing his daughter again. And second, even after all he had been through, he didn’t hate the world for how it had treated him. He blamed himself as much as he blamed anyone else, and a part of him believed he might find a life that he could be proud of one day.
This day wasn’t that day.
If all went well, he could scrape together enough money by noon for a sandwich and plenty of grape Mad Dog 20/20 to put him back out of his misery.
His multilayered, mismatched outfit of vomit-stained coats and shirts and gloves kept him warm in the fall weather. He pulled his coat tighter across his chest.
He had barely regained his wits from the previous night’s stupor when a familiar voice shouted, “Hey, Nevets.”
Steven ignored the tormentor. He didn’t need to see the owner of the distant voice to know it belonged to Smells-Like-He’s-Dead Fred.
“What’s wrong, Nevets?” Fred shouted. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bench again?” He chuckled. Steven grunted.
Same stupid joke every day. He flipped his middle finger into the air, hoping Fred would get the blow-off and move on.
This wasn’t supposed to be his life. He wasn’t like the scum surrounding him each night. He wasn’t like Fred, who pretended to be his friend one minute and then stole one of his shoes while he slept the next.
“See ya later, Nevets,” Fred shouted.
Nevets! What an asshole. Steven grabbed his handwritten sign which read Spare a Dollar and struggled to his feet.
He looked to Fred one last time as his nemesis made his way to the sidewalk on the opposite end of the park. Fred shoved his hand down the front of his pants, fished around for a second, and then pulled out his shriveled prick and splattered urine all over the sidewalk. An early morning jogger approached Fred who looked up from his stream without remorse. The jogger shook his head as he passed and Steven heard him call Fred an asshole.
Steven couldn’t agree more. Unlike Fred, Steven still had enough couth to find an out-of-the-way alley to relieve himself. After finishing his business he headed back, but a jet black van with windows to match squealed to a stop between him and the park, halting his progress. He mumbled, “Watch it, jerk-offs,” and detoured around the van.
He kept his eyes forward, hoping whoever occupied the van would continue on their way. He wasn’t so lucky. The van’s side door slid open. He picked up his pace. One of the van’s occupants shouted from behind, “Hey.”
Steven dropped his shoulders. Damn. He hoped this wasn’t another beating at the hands of some homeless-hater. He stopped, but he didn’t turn toward the voice.
The man’s voice was closer when he said, “Come ‘ere a minute.”
Steven didn’t want to engage the man, but he didn’t want the man to blindside him either. Slowly, he turned around.
Two men were standing next to the van. Both were wearing $1,000 suits, sunglasses, and serious expressions. “Come on, guys, just leave me alone. I don’t want any trouble.”
He was used to other bums or rambunctious teenagers harassing him, but these men were something entirely different.
Even from the distance, Fred recognized these men weren’t the typical tormentors. He shouted from his safe spot across the park, “Nevets, you okay over there?”
“Fred,” Steven shouted, “go find a cop.”
The man who was doing all of the talking said, “Now wait a minute, buddy. Just calm down.”
Steven took a step backward, but his path was blocked by a third man dressed in similar fashion to the first two. He was as big as a pro wrestler. Before Steven could protest, the man shoved a dark bag over his head.
Steven pulled at the bag, but a searing pain shot through his body from his back. A flash of white light accompanied the pain. His muscles stiffened and he collapsed to the ground.
“Don’t fight us,” one of the men said, “or you’ll get another jolt.”
Steven lay on the ground, collecting himself from the blast. He felt like he had been kicked by a mule and his muscles tingled.
The men grabbed his arms and legs and lifted him into the back of the van. They tied thin plastic straps around his wrists that dug into his flesh. The van’s muffler rumbled through the floorboards as the vehicle launched forward. Steven slid along the metal floor and struck the inside wall.
The big man ripped the hood from his head. He sat on a stool next to Steven while the other two sat on a maroon bench seat across from him. They smirked. Steven focused his eyes in the dim, flickering overhead compartment light.
One of the men on the bench held a stun gun in front of his face and threatened him with a zap at the air. He lowered the stun gun to his lap and asked in a voice so scratchy Steven wondered if he had swallowed glass, “Why did that guy call you Nevets?”
“Because he’s a jerk,” Steven answered and sat up.
“No. I mean, where did he come up with that name?”
“It’s my name backwards.”
“Yeah?” the stranger asked, not satisfied with the answer.
Steven took a deep, harassed breath.
“Well, go on,” the stun-gun wielding man said.
Steven considered not answering, but didn’t want to give the jerk another chance to use his weapon. He swallowed what little pride he had left. “We were drunk one night, and I told him that when I was young, I
had a disease that caused me to flip words around. You know dyslexia? He started calling me that right after.”
All three men broke into simultaneous laughter. The stun gun wielding bastard said, “That’s great,” and grabbed his gut, threatening to roll from his seat. “You dirt balls are a riot.”
“Where are you taking me?” Steven asked.
Still laughing, he said, “The adventure of a lifetime.” He nodded toward the big man who reached down and stuffed Steven’s head back under the hood.
The van drove for at least an hour before stopping, but for all Steven knew, his kidnappers could have simply pulled onto the interstate and driven him from one side of the city to the other. They stopped at one point and yanked him from the first van, stuffing him into another. The new van’s muffler was quieter, though the ride was no more comfortable.
The new van traveled along what must have been a highway, only stopping once to refuel. Or maybe they were buying gasoline to burn him alive. By that point, either scenario seemed equally likely to Steven.
They stopped again for food, and one of the men stuffed a fast food hamburger beneath Steven’s hood, almost gagging him with his force. The man held it while he ate. He considered biting off one of the man’s fingers, but didn’t like the prospect of another stun gun blast or worse. His newest abductors weren’t like the first group in that they didn’t say a word. When the time came for him to piss, they pulled to the side of the road only heaven knew where, retied his hands in front of his crotch, and held his shoulders while he went.
The smooth highway turned rough, tossing the van from side-to-side and throwing Steven against the hard wall. The sound of other passing cars faded until they disappeared completely, leaving no sounds but the kicking of gravel against the underbelly of the van. Steven wondered if he was being taken to a desolate forest to be tortured or killed, or both.
He decided if he were about to die, nothing they could do would make him beg. He didn’t beg God for his wife after she drowned while he was thousands of miles away in Iraq. He didn’t beg his daughter to let him back into her life after she blamed him for not being there to save her mom. And he wouldn’t beg these assholes for his own life either.
The van slowed to a stop. The side door slammed open. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder while another grabbed him beneath the opposite armpit. They lifted him from the van and onto what felt like dirt beneath his soles. He was trying to be strong, but he felt his hands shaking just the same.
The air smelled of manure, bringing back memories of his childhood trips to his uncle’s farm. A coyote howled in the distance. He wasn’t in the city anymore, that much he knew. The men escorted him along a path until they reached a concrete slab of some kind. Next, they marched him through a creaky wooden door into a quiet and foreboding room. One of the men yanked the hood from his head, not that it made much difference in the pitch-black room.
The men released his arms and cut the restraints from his wrists. He reached one of his hands into his pocket and squeezed his fingers around a cold metal locket. He held his closed fist to his mouth. “I love you,” he whispered into his fist.
One of the men shoved a chair against the back of his knees while the other pressed down on his shoulders. Steven sat with a thud onto the hard, wooden chair. A pointed chunk of splintered wood jammed into his left butt cheek and he squirmed away from it.
The room was quiet for several minutes. Finally, the silence was broken by an animalistic grunt followed by an asthmatic wheeze, but still no one spoke.
Steven built up the courage to whisper, “Hello?”
Silence followed.
Then another grunt.
He expected someone to slit his throat at any minute, but he didn’t beg. He thought about his life. He remembered how strong he used to be. He wondered how he could have let his world collapse so badly that his death in the next couple of minutes wouldn’t be grieved by anyone. Self-pity gripped his heart. He pictured his deceased wife and beautiful daughter, and for the first time in many years he wanted to honor them by picking himself up from his hell, but now it was too late.
The grunting and wheezing creature released a low growl that sounded not more than fifteen feet away at best. Steven wondered if he was about to be fed to a lion or a bear. His two captors remained a few steps behind him—he could tell by their increasingly excited breathing. That they hadn’t fled the room told him whatever beast was in the cage with him was restrained, giving him a small measure of hope.
An overhead light crackled and popped as it came to life. The light hurt his eyes, and he shoved his hand over them. After his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he pulled his hand away. He wished he hadn’t.
Standing at its full seven-foot height was potentially the most dangerous creature known to man. The beast’s jowls dripped with saliva, his yellow-tinted teeth brilliant in their deadliness. The creature stood sniffing the air. A thick chain hung from a collar around his neck to the far wall.
It was the first werewolf Steven had ever been near and he nearly wet himself. He prayed there was enough tension in the chain to hold the creature back. He turned to his abductors. Their expressions were callous, but calm; they had evidently been here before.
A low, staccato growl grew from the creature’s throat into a low rumble of a roar. But the werewolf didn’t attack, and for that Steven was elated.
An old PA system crackled from high within the dim room, followed by static, and then a man’s voice.
“Steven,” the voice said before cutting out for a second. “Welcome to my company home. We are excited to have you here.”
Steven listened carefully, understanding he was at their mercy.
The voice continued, “You are about to make us a lot of money, and for that I thank you.”
The werewolf snorted again.
“Although, I am afraid the next week or so is not going to be pleasant. Well, not for you, anyway. But rest assured you are going to make some people very happy. Your crappy life is about to change. I’d like to say for the better, but I really doubt that would be entirely true.”
The werewolf paced side-to-side.
The intercom voice continued. “I know everything about you. I know about your family and how you haven’t seen your daughter in many years. I know about how your wife died while you were fighting for our country. And I know how you’re little more than a broken-down drunk. If it’s any consolation, I will tell you this. When the boys came to me with your file, I considered leaving you alone simply because of your military service. But I reconsidered. You understand. If I left all of the bums—I’m sorry, I mean home-challenged people. If I left all of you alone because of your past military service, well then I wouldn’t have much of a business, now would I? Besides, the expensive research and meticulous planning had already been completed by the time the paperwork came across my desk, so ... let’s just say you are the perfect acquisition for our little project.”
“Who are you?” Steven asked, hoping the system was two-way.
“My dear friend, I am Mr. Bernard Henderson. And you are at the WereHouse.”
At that instant Steven realized why he was there. He hadn’t been so far removed from the world that he didn’t know what the WereHouse was about. He lost his breath like he had been struck in the chest. His stomach twisted and knotted.
He stammered, “N-no, wait. Let’s work this out.” But the voice wasn’t listening. The PA crackled on again with a buzz. Mr. Henderson’s voice was different this time—angrier. “Sic ‘em, boy,” he hissed.
The beast roared. Steven threw his weight back against his chair, tipping it over and knocking himself to the concrete floor. The two guards laughed as they backed farther away. The beast lunged to within a couple feet of Steven’s legs. Steven scrambled backward. The werewolf’s snapping teeth jerked to a stop inches from Steven’s outstretched legs. Steven pulled his knees to his chest. The beast inched backward and then lunged a second time, only to
be violently halted by the chained restraints wrapped around his throat.
The smell of the creature’s breath was akin to week-old garbage. Steven retreated until he collided with one of the guard’s leg. The guard grabbed his hair while the other guard grabbed his arm, and they dragged him closer to the monster. Steven thrashed in their grips and squirmed on the ground, but he couldn’t stop them. One of the guards moved too close, and the werewolf slammed his claw against his chest, knocking him to the concrete. He scrambled along the floor until he was out of the creature’s range. His face wore the same mask of dread Steven was sure painted his own face. Steven tried to follow the retreating guard, but the beast lashed out with his front claw and ripped a chunk of flesh from his thigh. Steven cried out and fell.
The wet warmth of blood ran down his thigh and spilled onto the ground.
The other guard returned. Steven struggled to stand. The guard at his left shouted, “Stop fighting. You’re just making it harder on yourself.”
Steven forgot about his vow not to beg. The thought of being eaten alive was more than he could bear. “Please, I’ll do anything. You can kill me, but please, not like this. Shoot me or stab me or something. Then you can feed me to him. But please, God, don’t let him eat me alive.”
The guards laughed at his desperate pleading. Steven squeezed his fist around the locket still in his hand and swung his arm at one of them. His fist collided with the bastard’s cheek, but the guard held firm. The monster tried to get closer, thrashing against his restraints with violent zeal.
Steven turned his back to the beast as he fought the guards’ unforgiving grasps. He locked eyes with one of them and pleaded for mercy. That guard turned his head away in shame.
“Please,” Steven whispered again.
The guards pulled him close to their chests. The guard that had just turned away whispered, “He’s not going to eat you,” and then the two men heaved him away from them. Steven grabbed for their shirts or their arms or anything to stop his plunge, but caught nothing but air.
Tamed Page 5
