Tamed

by Douglas R. Brown

  As he stared in awe, his eyes wandered downward. The beast’s waist was thin, but its chest was thick and muscular. Aiden looked below the creature’s waist and noticed that the creature was, in fact, a he. When the salesman noticed Aiden’s shock, he mentioned that there was a catalog of accessories to hide such indiscretions.

  The beast’s deadly claws glistened in the poor lighting, and Aiden couldn’t take his eyes from them. He wondered if they were as big as a polar bear’s. Bigger, he decided. The beast sniffed the bars and snorted.

  “Can I pet him?” Aiden whispered.

  The salesman nudged him from behind. “Go ahead. He’s as safe as your pet cat or puppy dog or whatever you have.”

  Aiden crept forward, reaching his hand toward the bars. His father and the salesman continued talking behind him, though he didn’t hear what they said. The beast seemed sad.

  “It’s okay,” Aiden whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

  The creature dropped to all fours with his head still below his shoulders. Aiden reached through the cell bars. The creature sniffed the air above his hand with a sudden snort which startled him. Undeterred, Aiden rubbed the werewolf’s head between his ears. His fur was rough, his skin feverish. The creature shied away from Aiden’s gaze, as if afraid of looking into his eyes.

  “That’s a sign of respect,” Mr. Henderson said. “A good werg, like a good dog, should never stare down a human.”

  “And if he did?” Aiden’s father asked.

  Mr. Henderson chuckled. “Well, it’s never happened, but if it did you could call us and we’d take him back for reeducation.”

  The creature licked the air below Aiden’s wrist. Aiden turned his palm toward himself while holding his hand in front of the beast. The creature’s tongue was rough, like wet sandpaper, but gentle.

  Aiden turned back to his father, excited and impatient. “Dad, can I have him? Can I have a ... a werg?” he paused as he realized he didn’t know what the beast was. He heard the salesman say werg earlier, but he couldn’t tell if that was slang or what they really were. He had seen enough late-night horror movies to guess what they were, but the creatures from the movies weren’t real. He looked to the salesman. “What’s a werg?”

  The salesman smiled. “My dear boy, we just call them wergs. The average person would call them werewolves.”

  “A werewolf?” his father blurted. “Like in the movies?”

  “Don’t worry, sir. It isn’t a werewolf in the same sense as the werewolves in the movies. We only call them werewolves because of their similarities to the mythical creature. Think of it as a marketing ploy.”

  “I’d say it’s more than a ploy. Hell, he looks like all the werewolves I’ve seen in the movies.”

  “Hence the name. But rest assured, he is no more dangerous than a Shih Tzu.” The salesman started to laugh. “And he’s not going to turn into a human after the next full moon, either.”

  Aiden’s father laughed as well. “Yeah, I suppose I don’t much buy into fairy tales. What’s he eat?”

  “He’s similar to a dog. In fact, our scientists have determined that werewolves, like dogs, are actually descended from wolves. He’ll eat dog food or raw meat like steak or chicken. It’s all in his manual and video guide, which you’ll get as part of the package. It is very important that you feed him every day and don’t forget.”

  “What happens if I forget?” his father asked with a bit of trepidation.

  The salesman chuckled again. “Oh, it isn’t anything to worry about. If you do forget, they have been known to snatch a wayward squirrel or even the occasional cat.” He snickered again. “And you wouldn’t want to piss off any of your neighbors when their pets start disappearing, would ya?”

  “I don’t suppose so. He must eat a lot, though. Look at his size.”

  “That’s one of the reasons we come to your house every two weeks. We’ll take him to a preserve owned by the company to let him hunt larger game. It’ll give him an opportunity to supplement his diet, along with a chance to be with others of his kind. Think of it as a doggie vacation.”

  “Is this the same place as your re-education facility?”

  “No, no, no. The company owns a large forest, and we send them there. The re-education facility is at the stables where we raise them to be pets.”

  Aiden secretly wished his father would shut up so he could take his new friend home, but his father seemed full of questions.

  “Have you ever had problems with an aggressive one?”

  “Oh no, no, no. Never. Really, do you think the government would allow us to sell these things if they weren’t safe?”

  “No, I don’t suppose they would.”

  “So, can I get one delivered to ya?”

  “Well.” He glanced down. Aiden looked up with his best pleading gaze. “What the heck. I’ll take this one.”

  “You won’t be sorry, sir.”

  Aiden stared at his new pet. “Rufus,” he muttered.

  “What’s that, son?”

  “Rufus. His name is Rufus.”

  “Hey, Aiden, wake up. We’re almost there.”

  Aiden rubbed his eyes and tugged a lever on the side of his seat, raising the back for a better look through the windshield. “How many times do I have to tell you, Greg?” he said. “When we’re hunting, call me Talik or Mr. Talik or whatever, but don’t use my first name. Got it?”

  Greg rolled his eyes. “You’re such a squirrel. The only thing that’ll hear your name isn’t going to be around long enough to remember it.”

  “Just the same.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it ... Talik.”

  The coming headlights blurred through the heavy rain beating against the windshield. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Four hours, man. You must have been dreaming some wild shit because your eyelids were fluttering like mad. We had a hell of a laugh, didn’t we, Jeffrey?”

  The man in the back seat agreed in his own profanity-laced way. Talik ignored him for the most part.

  “So what were you dreaming about,” Greg asked.

  “A friend I had when I was a kid,” Aiden answered. “A long time ago. His name was Rufus.”

  “Rufus? What, was he a dog or something?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Well, you’d better get your head on straight, ‘cause we’re about to be in the shit.”

  Talik nodded, rubbed the sleep from his eyes again, and then dug through his pockets until he found a two-pack of aspirin. He grabbed a warm beer from the cup holder on the dash and downed the two white pills.

  9

  ROGUE HUNTERS

  GREG pulled to the side of the road, parked, and turned on the truck’s flashers. He removed a pistol from his waistband and jammed the slide backward with a clunk. “Go silver or go home, eh, Talik?”

  Jeffrey passed Talik an AK-47, fully loaded and ready for battle. Greg smirked at Talik’s weapon of choice, as he did before every hunt. “When are you going to trade that sloppy AK for something with better aim?”

  “When they make something as reliable in the rain and mud.” When it came to hunting game as dangerous as wergs, he couldn’t risk his weapon not working. He had shot his AK once when it was covered in mud, and he wouldn’t be here today if it had failed.

  Talik pointed over the embankment and into the forest. “The reports say he’s livin’ down there, by a creek that flows under that bridge up ahead.” He pointed to a one-lane, graffiti-laced bridge at the end of a rutted dirt road. “This one’s gone completely rogue. He’ll kill you as soon as run from you, so be careful.”

  “Good,” Greg said with a grin. “I get tired of picking them off while they stare at me like I’m bringing them meat.”

  Talik grunted and swung his door open. “Let’s go,” he mumbled, pulling his raincoat on and using it to cover his rifle. He hopped out into the pouring rain. Greg and Jeffrey joined him as he descended the muddy embankment.

  The col
d rain hit his face with stinging velocity. His footing was precarious at best, but he didn’t slow. Killing wergs required speed and surprise. Though the rain would help hide their scent, their footsteps would reveal their approach.

  He stopped at the creek’s edge. The small bridge hid its underbelly in shadow, creating the perfect temporary shelter. As wild as the wergs could be, he had never met one that enjoyed being out in the rain. He brushed his hand along his side.

  Greg spread out to his left. Talik and Jeffrey stepped into the ankle-high creek. Talik knelt and opened his raincoat. His partner moved three feet to his right and did the same. Talik lifted a flashlight with his left hand and pressed it flush against the underside of his weapon with the beam off. He put the butt of the gun against his right shoulder and his finger alongside the trigger.

  And then he waited.

  His knee ached against the rocky creek bed. His calf muscle cramped. The frigid bite of the water on his legs stung. But he didn’t move. Neither did his partner.

  The clouds parted, briefly revealing the half-moon, but they quickly shifted and hid the moon again. The rain didn’t slow. Talik shivered.

  After an hour passed, his heart rate increased, a sign his body knew what was nearing. He had hunted enough rogues with these men to have a sense of when the fight was about to begin. He shifted his weight from his aching knee. Soon, he would know if his hunch that the rogue werg waited beneath the bridge was right or wrong, and he would either be in a battle for his life, or Greg would emerge from beyond the bridge and their search would continue.

  A flare shot like a laser toward the bridge from a patch of trees on the opposite side. The flare struck the stone like a missile and exploded white sparks into the air before falling into the creek. Machine-gun fire erupted from the trees.

  The hidden werewolf bounded from his hideout and into the open. Talik flicked on his flashlight and squeezed the trigger of his weapon. His partner did the same.

  The werg flailed from the hail of bullets, appearing to dance as chunks of his flesh ripped from his body. He howled in pain, dropped to all fours, and charged. Talik’s weapon clicked. He dropped his flashlight and withdrew a fresh clip from his waist. The werg closed in, its flesh rippling and tearing away with each accurate shot from Jeffrey until he also needed to reload.

  The werg was within twenty feet and coming fast. Talik slammed the new clip into his weapon.

  Fifteen feet.

  Jeffrey tossed his assault rifle into the water and withdrew a pistol.

  Ten feet.

  Talik yanked the slide backward.

  Five feet.

  Jeffrey squeezed off his first shot from the pistol.

  The werg dove at him. Talik fell to the side, his weapon aimed. He couldn’t fire for risk of hitting Jeffrey, and had to trust in his friend’s skill. Jeffrey gasped and scrambled from the werg’s path.

  The wounded and bloody creature slammed its open hand against Jeffrey, sending the hunter to the creek bed and shocking the air from his lungs. Talik opened fire again until the werg disappeared within the tree line. He rushed to his partner.

  “Jeff, are you solid?”

  “Yeah. Just need to catch my breath.”

  “Alright. Wait for Greg. Tell him to pick up our trail.”

  “You going without us?”

  He gritted his teeth. “What do you think?”

  Jeffrey smiled. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Talik slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed from the creek bed. He glanced back at Jeffrey before disappearing into the woods in pursuit of his prey.

  In his haste to escape, the werg left a path of broken branches along the way. Talik was a skilled enough hunter that he would be able to track this creature even with the rain washing away the bloody trail.

  There was no doubt he had inflicted serious injuries on the beast, so he didn’t expect to have far to go. It was just like hunting deer. When the creature’s adrenaline wore off, he would slow down, the effects of the silver taking hold. And that’s when Talik would find him.

  The trail of broken branches led to a small clearing and the creature at its center. The werewolf sat against a rottedout, fallen tree, licking his many wounds. His ears perked up at Talik’s approach.

  Talik stalked into the clearing. The creature staggered to his feet. Talik aimed his weapon. He saw a brief moment of sadness in the creature’s soulless eyes and felt a twinge of guilt over what needed to be done.

  The werewolf broke Talik’s trance with a pounce. Talik fired again, striking the creature square in its chest. The creature wailed, but didn’t slow, and then the rogue werg was upon him. Talik dropped his weapon and pulled out a silver-bladed knife. The creature swarmed him and lunged for his throat with its deadly fangs. Talik jammed the blade upward below the werewolf’s sternum, beneath his ribs and into his heart. The werewolf froze with a fatal realization as the two tumbled to the ground.

  Talik lay beneath the dead beast for a few seconds while gathering his composure. He was careful not to let any of the creature’s blood drip onto his face, and for once he welcomed the cleansing rain. After nearly smothering from the creature’s weight, he heaved him from his chest. His men approached from behind. He slowly got to his feet and ordered the mess cleaned up. His heart beat almost through his chest, but he didn’t show his nerves or his quivering hands to his men. He headed back toward the truck while they went to work.

  Once at the truck, he stripped down to his boxers and tossed his drenched clothing into the bed of the pickup. He climbed into the cab and pulled a towel and a fresh set of clothes from his duffle bag. As he dried off, he noticed blood on his wrist. After a quick look at his own arm and hand, he realized the blood belonged to his prey. As long as he didn’t have any cuts of his own near the blood, he wouldn’t need to be decontaminated. He scrubbed the blood away with increasing guilt over his chosen lot in life. These days were getting rougher.

  With the blood mostly cleaned away, he slipped into his dry clothes and stared through the windshield at the falling rain. He was alone like he had always been, and he suddenly felt like crying. Memories of previous kills rushed through his thoughts. His lower lip trembled. He had lost the taste for the killing long ago, yet he knew he could never stop. This was his life, and all it would ever be.

  As his men emerged from the forest dragging the werewolf carcass toward the truck, Talik wiped his blurry eyes and gathered himself. His men heaved the dead werg into the truck bed and covered it with a tarp.

  “Good job, Talik,” Greg said as he hopped into the driver’s seat.

  Talik glanced at him and then back through the windshield. “Just another day,” he finally mumbled.

  He hated his life.

  10

  NEVETS DAY TWO

  STEVEN startled himself awake. He was in a horse stall with dirt floors and a saddle hanging on one of the walls. A pile of hay sat in the far corner. He reached for the wall at his back to help himself to his feet, but his shoulder screamed for him to stop, and he pulled his hand back against his chest with a groan. The flesh of his shoulder tingled and tugged at itself as if mending. The rest of his body felt numb.

  He was wearing only cut-off sweatpants that didn’t belong to him. His chest was covered with dried blood, probably his own. His head throbbed, and he wondered if a shot of whiskey would help. His stomach rumbled with the same idea. He shivered as his breath misted in the early morning air.

  His chest felt like thousands of needles poked and prodded beneath his skin. He dug at his itchy flesh, unable to stop until his skin was red and raw, and even then he had to fight his continuing urges. As Steven scratched, the fingernail of his middle finger peeled back and fell to the dirt, leaving a throbbing, oozing wound where the nail had been. He stared at the back of his hand; his pinky swelled before that nail also fell off.

  He looked down to his bare feet. Thick, blood-tinged pus oozed from beneath his overgrown toenails as they too lifted
from his toes and fell away. He looked around the stable and out into the corral. Something was wrong with his eyes. The color had drained away, leaving the world black and white with a greenish tint as though he stared through a set of army night-vision goggles.

  He tried to stand. His chest seized and tightened like someone was sitting on his ribcage, and he collapsed to his back. He froze, hoping the pain would subside, but it only increased until he could hardly breathe. Oh, God, he was having a heart attack. He let loose what was meant to be a scream, but instead it was an animalistic howl.

  What is happening to me?

  Pain shot from his teeth, through his eyes, and into his brain. He rolled to his side. His chest felt as though something foreign grew in its center where his heart should be. He clawed at the ground with his impotent fingers until they bled in the dirt.

  His gut hurt like he had swallowed lava. He curled into a ball. Please, God, stop the pain.

  He tried to remember how he came to be in that stable, but his memory of only a day or two before was fading fast. His heart let loose with one final jolt of horrible pain before he passed out again.

  11

  A CHANGING WORLD

  CHRISTINE’S doctor had requested she take a few more shifts off from work, at least until the stitches in her thigh were removed. However, when she awoke on her third morning since the attack her wound seemed mostly healed. Against her every instinct, she picked at the irritating stitches until she had removed them on her own. The laceration was little more than a long, purplish scar, appearing to have never needed stitches in the first place. Even the aching muscles that she woke up with each morning were gone. She felt strong, stronger than usual, and had an unexplainable urge for a morning jog.