Get Bent!

by Rick Gualtieri

  The voice of Riva’s mom floated back to us from the kitchen. “You’re not telling that stupid Ganesh story again, are you, Arjun?”

  “What do you know, woman?” he shouted back. “It’s a great story.” He turned back to us. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes. It’s okay to be young and stupid, but you need to step back and let the hallucinations pass before you run off telling people that ... what was it again?”

  “Werewolves,” I replied deadpan.

  “Yes, werewolves. You need to realize that some of those things you’ve been smoking or snorting can cause you to see...”

  The somewhat surreal PSA we were listening to was interrupted by the sound of tires squealing outside, followed by the crunch of metal against metal.

  “Oh, now what the hell?” Mr. Kale cried, stepping to the window. “I told Brentberg he needed to hide his car keys from that idiot child of his. I swear, if he’s dented our mailbox again, I’m going to call the homeowners’ association.”

  Riva and I joined him at the window. The mailbox wasn’t just dented – it had been obliterated. A muscle car now sat atop it, halfway onto the front lawn, the rear wheels sitting on the sidewalk.

  “What in the name of...”

  The doors on both sides of the vehicle opened and two men stepped out, but they were only men in the vaguest sense of the word. Both were in the middle of transforming, their clothes ripping to shreds even as they planted their feet onto the well-manicured grass.

  “My God, what are those?”

  Unfortunately, I had a feeling neither God, Ganesh, nor any other compassionate deity had anything to do with what was coming for us.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Maryam!” Riva’s father shouted.

  The tone in his voice must have sounded urgent because she returned from the kitchen at once.

  “No questions,” he said. “Take the girls and go upstairs. Dial 9-1-1.” He paused to look out the window again, where the two wolf-men were growing hairier by the second. “Tell them there’s a burglar. Anything to get them here.”

  “But...”

  “NOW!”

  Without any further hesitation, Mrs. Kale pushed past us. “Come with me, girls.” Her tone was brave but with an undercurrent of worry beneath it as she waved us toward the stairs. She grabbed my arm and began steering me in that direction after I stood unmoving for a second too long.

  “But, Mr. Kale...”

  “He has a gun,” Riva’s mother replied, “in his office. Let him handle this.”

  “No.”

  “Tamara, get upstairs now.” She put on her mom voice and I actually found myself lifting my foot before realizing what I was doing.

  Fortunately, Riva was in the know. “Mom, trust me. She’s got this.”

  That was perhaps an exaggeration. So far this night I’d accidentally murdered my fiancé, run from the scene of the crime, and managed to save exactly nobody before the bad guys showed up.

  In all fairness on that last one, I hadn’t expected them to drive here. Fucking twenty-first century werewolves, screwing with my expectations.

  At least they were predictable in that, within the next few seconds, the front door was literally kicked off its hinges. Mrs. Kale screamed in surprise, but if she thought that was shocking, then she definitely wasn’t ready for what was waiting in the now open doorway – two fully grown werewolves, each at least seven feet tall, the light from the porch illuminating them in a way that gave no doubt that they were the real thing.

  Two sets of yellow eyes locked onto me and I pulled free from Mrs. Kale’s grasp. This was my fault, my mess. That meant it was my job to fix it.

  Or it would have been had Riva’s dad not picked that moment to reenter the room and open fire on the two monsters advancing upon us.

  CHAPTER 27

  I had absolutely no idea if my powers offered any protection against bullets, so I made what I thought to be the safe assumption and backed up until my heels hit the stairs and I stumbled into Mrs. Kale’s arms.

  Riva’s dad was thankfully one of those gun owners who believed in walking the walk when it came to home protection. He was in a shooter’s stance, squeezing off carefully aimed shots, one after the other. In some ways, seeing his well-loved face – always so friendly and welcoming – dead set on protecting his home was a lot scarier than the creatures coming for us.

  Or it was until I realized he’d hit the lead wolf with multiple rounds yet still wasn’t doing much to slow it down.

  Bloody bullet holes stood out on its chest, but you’d have thought they were little more than bee stings. As the gunfire ended, the wolf in front glanced from Mr. Kale back to me and actually chuckled through its massive teeth – a guttural sound that was anything but cheerful.

  “Run!” her dad cried as he worked to slam a fresh magazine into place. Sadly for him, I had a feeling more ammo wasn’t the answer here. That meant it was my turn.

  I pulled free from Mrs. Kale’s grasp.

  “Tamara, don’t be stupid!”

  Eh, I’d been called far worse.

  Both of Riva’s parents screamed at me to get back, but I did the opposite, marching forward to meet the beasts who’d come for my friend and her family.

  The wolf continued to chuckle, as if it had been told a particularly funny joke in dog language. It actually waved me forward like it wanted to test my mettle. Craig had said that he didn’t plan on letting my true nature become widely known among the pack. This idiot seemed to confirm that. If so, the advantage was mine and I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.

  The cries of my best friend’s parents reached a fever pitch, but I ignored them as I cocked back a fist. If this thing wanted to see if it could take my best shot, who was I to say no?

  Remembering what these monsters were here to do, I let loose with everything I had. Turns out that was more than even I realized. I expected to double the beast over, maybe drop it to the ground retching, but instead my hand punched right through its gut – becoming intimately acquainted with its intestinal tract.

  Eww!

  The wolf’s chuckle turned into a pained wheeze, and its eyes bugged out of its head as it gasped for air.

  I should have been horrified at what I’d done, but there was no time to dwell on that. This monster had come here intent on murder and it wasn’t alone.

  Grabbing hold of the impaled wolf with my other hand, I spun and sent it flying. My arm pulled free of its stomach with a spray of blood and a disturbing schlup sound right before the monstrous beast crashed through the front window. It landed on the lawn, where it tumbled end over end before collapsing in a heap on the grass.

  Seeing that I wasn’t quite the easy target his buddy had assumed me to be, the other wolf hesitated for a moment. Then it tried to race past me to where Riva and her mom still cowered on the stairs.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t having any of that shit.

  It was fast, but not quite fast enough. I plowed into its flank before it could get to them, slamming it into the wall and leaving a crater in the drywall. Hopefully Riva’s family had very forgiving homeowners insurance.

  The wolf grunted, the wind knocked out of it. Before it could recover, I dragged it away from them and threw it face-first onto the floor.

  It was there I realized I had a hard choice to make – both now and as more of these monsters poured into my town. I could incapacitate this beast as best I could, but they healed fast. Knocking them down would be little more than spitting into the wind. As for expecting mercy, that was likely a fool’s errand.

  There was nothing to keep them from getting back up and resuming their slaughter.

  No, that wasn’t true. There was me.

  Mr. Kale had reloaded by then, but before he could line up a shot, I jumped onto the wolf’s back.

  “Tamara, get out of the way!”

  “Don’t bother,” I replied in a cold voice devoid of emotion.

  Killing Jerry had been a terrible accident, but th
ere was nothing accidental about what I was doing now.

  I grabbed the wolf’s upper and lower jaws in my hands and began to force them apart. The creature made a keening yip of pain as I put on the pressure, reminding myself that it had been sent specifically to kill my friend. Had Jerry not said anything, I might have gone home or to the police first, not realizing that Riva had been targeted. If so, these things would have walked in here unopposed and...

  I gritted my teeth in anger and there came a rippling crack as the werewolf’s head split in two along its jawline.

  Its body went limp beneath me and I stood, staring down at it for several seconds, trying to come to terms with what I’d done and what still needed to be done. Maybe it took a monster to stop other monsters.

  So be it.

  As for this one, it certainly appeared dead. I nudged it once with my foot ... nothing. I then glanced out the front window and saw the first wolf lying unmoving where it had landed. It, too, looked down for the count.

  Weird. Shooting it point blank seemed to have about as much effectiveness as slapping a grizzly bear with a fly swatter, yet where bullets failed my fists had gotten the job done.

  It was only then that I realized the only reason I had time to think these thoughts was due to the stunned silence that had descended upon the Kale household.

  Riva’s dad stared wide-eyed at the dead werewolf on his living room floor. He looked up at me and his expression didn’t change. If anything, I saw him glance once at the gun still in his hand, as if considering it. It hurt to see that thought pass through his eyes, but it was also hard to blame him.

  “Are you okay, Bent?”

  “Riva, stay back...”

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  I turned to see my friend trying to push her way past her mother, who was doing her damnedest to hinder her daughter’s progress, as if I was as big of a threat as the monsters I’d vanquished.

  “That’s enough, Maryam.” Riva’s father met my gaze and I saw that he’d composed himself, apparently having decided that I was the lesser of two evils. “She saved us.”

  “She’s...”

  “We don’t know what she is.”

  “Wow, nice way to call her a freak, Dad.”

  “I didn’t call her a freak.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle as I said to Riva, “He’s right. You did.”

  “Is ... is it dead?” Mr. Kale asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “You killed it.”

  “Again, I hope so.”

  He stepped forward hesitantly and nudged its broken jaw with his foot. “What the fuck is it?”

  “Arjun! Language.”

  He turned to his wife and gave her perhaps the most incredulous stare I had ever seen. “Are you kidding me? Do you see this thing? It came here to kill us and you’re worried about my language?” His wife didn’t have a quick answer to that. “Open your eyes and look at this ... monster! What is it? Why did it come here? Are there more? And why in hell was it driving a Mustang?”

  I shared a glance with Riva and she nodded at my unspoken question. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak. While I wished this could be explained away as a bad drug trip, the dead bodies and damage to their house was hard to ignore.

  Not to mention, this wasn’t over, not by a long shot. I had a feeling these two were little more than the advance guard ... a couple of good ole boys who just happened to have a faster ride than everyone else.

  I turned toward Mr. Kale, prepared to give the shortest barrage of answers I could that would both satiate their curiosity and allow us to get moving, but before I could say anything, his cell phone started ringing.

  He held up a hand and fished it out of his pocket.

  “Really, Arjun?” his wife asked. “Ignore it.”

  He threw a glare her way. “It might be important.”

  “We almost died!”

  He ignored her protests and answered it with a disturbingly polite, “Hello, Kale residence.” If I thought that was odd, though, what he said next definitely threw me for a loop. “Oh, hello, Lissa. I hope you’re having a pleasant evening.” Lissa?! “Why, yes. She’s right here. Just one moment.”

  He turned to me and held out the phone. “It’s your mother.”

  CHAPTER 28

  I took the offered device with a blank look on my face. There was no way this was mere coincidence. “Hello?”

  “Care to tell me what happened?”

  “How did you know to call... You were spying on me again, weren’t you?”

  “It’s called scrying,” Mom said.

  “Whatever. Why didn’t you just call me on my...”

  “I did. Check your pocket.”

  I went to pull out my phone and immediately realized things were amiss. What was left was little more than a crushed piece of broken plastic with a shattered screen. Guess my scuffle with Jerry was a bit more physical than I’d thought.

  My sigh was apparently all Mom needed to continue. “I repeat, what happened? Why are you at Riva’s house instead of in Morganberg?”

  “I thought you said you were scrying me.”

  “It’s a busy night, lots of stuff going on. Much as I’m sure it’ll come as a surprise, the world doesn’t revolve around you. Besides...”

  I could sense she was hesitating for some reason. “Besides what?”

  “I ... was having trouble seeing you earlier. There are spots in Morganberg that make it ... difficult for me to... It doesn’t matter. Bring me up to speed, Tamara. Now!”

  Difficult? Did she mean she couldn’t lock on to me or that something was jamming her reception? I doubted she was talking about Shop Haven, but right at that moment, it seemed like the least of my problems.

  Rather than argue, I begrudgingly stepped to the far corner of the room, while Riva and her family conversed among themselves, and gave my mother a very compacted retelling of events.

  “You just had to kill him,” she replied with an annoyed huff. “Do you have any idea what this means, Tamara?”

  “I didn’t want to. It just happened. I didn’t set out tonight to become a...” I lowered my voice to a bare whisper, “a murderer. I know you must think I’m a monster, but you have to understand what he said about Riva. I ... just lost it. I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Oh, honey, I don’t care about that. Quite frankly, your uncle is lucky I let any of them live after that stunt he pulled showing up at our house.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear for a moment and stared at it, not quite believing what she was saying. Whoever Mr. Kale’s cell carrier was, I really hoped they weren’t listening in right now.

  “I kind of wish I had just vaporized them all. Would have saved us a lot of trouble. But that’s neither here nor there. What matters is that events have been set in motion, events that I’m not sure can be easily fixed.”

  “They’re coming, aren’t they? And there isn’t anything I can do to stop it.”

  “I’m afraid not,” she replied in an eerily calm voice.

  “What can I do?”

  “Run. Get out of High Moon.”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t leave these people here to die because of me.”

  “I know, but I had to say it. You are my daughter, after all.”

  If she was trying to coax a smile out of me, it worked, although I had a feeling it was the last bit of mirth that would be crossing my mouth for some time. “I’m going to fight them.”

  Rather than explain to me what a monumentally stupid idea that was, she said, “Then fight smart. Even you can’t take on all of them at once.”

  “I kinda figured. Any chance of getting help from your end?”

  There was a pause, as I knew there would be. Mom’s hands were pretty much tied on this one. But I had to try anyway.

  “There are more eyes focused on High Moon tonight than you know, dear,” she replied. “Some of them quite nervous, too. I’m doing what I can. We’re currently discussing ... a re
sponse.”

  “A response? Like what, a sternly worded letter?”

  “Something that’s unlikely to provoke a war.”

  “Picket signs, then?”

  “Don’t be a smart mouth, Tamara. If we move in force against the lycanthropes, the entire town will be smoldering ash by morning.”

  “Sorry. Yeah, I know. So I’m on my own, then.”

  “Not necessarily. Help those who can’t help themselves, but fight alongside those who are able to.”

  That wasn’t particularly helpful. “How?”

  “Your father’s people are strong, but they aren’t unbeatable.”

  I again lowered my voice. “You sure about that? I just watched Riva’s dad unload a Glock into one and the thing laughed it off.”

  “Not surprising. They heal fast and their constitutions are off the chart. Not to mention I sincerely doubt Arjun keeps silver bullets in that little gun of his.”

  I blinked several times. “Wait, that’s real? I mean, silver?”

  “Of course. But it has nothing to do with the power of goodness or claptrap like that. Silver is a natural retardant for otherworldly energies. It’s excellent for binding unnatural creatures, entrapping, injuring, or outright killing them.”

  “So we need a ton of silver to stop them all. Great. I’ll start digging, see if I can find a mineshaft.”

  “Catastrophic injury works as well. Much as I’m sure your uncle would love for you to believe they’re invincible, very few creatures can claim to be able to get back up after a beheading.”

  “Even better. Silver and swords, two things I just so happen to be fresh out of.”

  “In the garage, behind the cleaning supplies. Look for a loose board in the wall.”

  “What?”

  “If you can make it there, you’ll find things to help.”

  I let out a laugh. “If I can make it there. That’s a confidence builder for when I’m being swarmed by...”

  Wait a second. Something didn’t add up.

  “Tamara, are you still there?”

  I was busy looking at the mutilated werewolf corpse on the living room floor. “Hold on. I took out Jerry and two of his friends. Last I checked, I’m neither made of silver nor karate chopping heads off.”