by Jen Haeger
The crowd roared in response, many of the assembled Wolfkin standing with raised fists as they shouted. David felt a strong desire to cheer as well, but also an odd stubbornness that prevented him from vocalizing at Roberto’s anti-St. Crispin’s Day speech. He did allow himself to nod his head in a forceful and approving way. Once the crowd had quietened down once more, Roberto motioned for Zachary to replace him at the podium, and although Zachary’s face remained neutral, his slouched posture in the shadows of the stage edge betrayed his reluctance to follow Roberto’s last moving sentiments.
“I thank you all in advance for your support, bravery, and sacrifice. Caroline and I and Louis and Madeline have prepared lists of teams and appointed team leaders for each who should get together after this general meeting to discuss individual team strategies. We have several conference rooms set aside for you for this purpose with complementary food and beverages provided by the hotel, so please see your Alpha, Beta, or Gamma after this meeting to receive a list of your team members and where you should meet next. Team leaders will determine the necessary length of these individual meetings, and all Wolfkin are welcome to stay at the hotel free of charge should that be their desire. Team leaders should e-mail a report of their meeting outcome to Caroline within 24 hours so that we can coordinate our side of the battle. We have Wahya and Amaruq members discussing the benefits and drawbacks of each battle site, but if anyone has any strong knowledge or opinions on either site please let us know. Thank you again. We may not have the numbers, but we have strength nonetheless.”
David wasn’t sure if Zachary was expecting to elicit another cheer from the audience, but he only received polite applause as those not already standing rose and stretched, and all crowded around the leadership of the two packs. David noted that Zachary remained on stage near Roberto and let Caroline and Clem’s Gamma stand-in, deal with the swarm of Wolfkin ready for action.
22
Melissa’s blood sample did have virions in it, but all of the tested sample segments of her DNA were clear of viral entwinement. The news was bad, but not unexpected and Evelyn felt a tiny surge of excitement that they would be able to test the antivirals. She just prayed that Melissa would take the medication religiously. It took Evelyn and Kim most of the night to work through Melissa’s samples, and Kim seemed much quieter than usual even though they both tried not to talk much while working to cut down on possible contamination via aerosolized saliva. Evelyn wondered if Kim was upset about the student’s infection, or if she was worrying about the upcoming fight. The truth was, Evelyn was very worried about the fast-approaching full moon, and was torn.
A part of her wanted so badly to fight. On a strictly intellectual level, they needed all the warm-blooded Wolfkin bodies they could get, but also on a visceral level, she wanted to punish the Vulke for what they had done, not just to her, but to everyone whose life they had taken or destroyed. She knew that David was trying to protect her, and that he would say that they couldn’t risk losing her, but if they lost the fight Evelyn was sure that there would be no place that she could hide from the Vulke, and even if there was, there would be no way for her to continue her research without Roberto’s support. Not to mention the fact that she would never forgive herself for hiding away in the lab while the rest of her Wolfkin brethren were dying out in the woods somewhere.
She had surreptitiously been scouring the internet for the past few weeks trying to get in touch with the Scribe’s apprentice, Philip, and had finally tracked down his e-mail. Evelyn had sent him all of the raw data and reports that she had, and continued to send him constant updates. It gave her at least a little relief that her progress was being recorded and that Philip could get the information out to someone else to continue that work if he needed to. She dared not ask after the Scribe, because she knew that he was not going to get any better, even if Evelyn managed to find a cure, the neurologic damage perpetrated by the virus was unrepairable.
As she and Kim got ready to leave the lab, Evelyn turned to Kim. “We’re going to be okay.”
“What?”
“You just seem a little…er…blue, and I just wanted to let you know that things are going to be alright. David defeated the Vulke once and he’ll figure out how to do it again.”
Kim smiled weakly. “Oh, right, I know.”
“And we’re making good progress in the lab.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
Kim still seemed despondent, but Evelyn wasn’t sure what else to say to make her feel better. “Are you worried about the change? Because you should be a lot more stable now that you’re expecting it and aren’t injured.”
“No, it’s not that, I…it’s just a lot. I guess it’s just everything put together.”
Evelyn patted Kim on the shoulder and then smothered her in a spontaneous hug. “It’ll all be over soon. I know it will.”
Evelyn felt a gentle, motherly feeling come over her even though Kim was only a few years younger than she was. She felt the itch of tears forming and released Kim to find that the girl also had tears in her eyes. “Evie, you saved my life. Have I ever really thanked you?”
“You have now. Now let’s get out of this basement and get a little fresh air. I think that we both need it.”
Evelyn was dying to hear what happened at the meeting, but she wasn’t even sure that David was home yet when she pulled into the driveway. The condo was dark, but Evelyn guessed that David would have gone to bed if he was home anyway. She and Kim went inside and turned on the light. David’s shoes were missing, so Evelyn decided that he must still be at the meeting, and she was about to head upstairs to bed when she noticed a blinking light on the landline phone. David would’ve called on her cell phone, so blood draining from her face and her stomach twisting into a knot of worry, Evelyn hurried over to listen to the voice message.
After accessing the message and punching in the password, Evelyn listened intently while Kim hovered nearby.
“Evie? This is Karen. I’m sorry to call so late, but, well, it’s Clem. He has it in his head that he’s going to take part in this fight, and I can’t talk him out of it. Please, can you come up and speak to him? Give him an exam and tell him he can’t do it? I know that you’re so busy, but I’m afraid, I’m afraid that he’s not strong enough and that he’s going to get himself killed. He won’t listen to me. I’m so sorry to bother you with this, but I think that you might be the only one he will listen to. Will you come? Let me know. Thank you, Evie.”
Evelyn shut off the phone and set it back in its charging cradle, bringing her hand up to her forehead. “Dammit.”
“What is it Evie?”
“It’s…” a very long story, “a friend of mine. Nothing to worry about, but I’m going to have to rent a car tomorrow and head to the U.P.”
“Tomorrow?”
Evelyn nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, but we should get some rest now. I’m sure going to need it.”
Kim didn’t press and as they got ready for bed, Evelyn was grateful. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened to Clem. There was no need to burden Kim with the knowledge of werewolf hunters in addition to the other horrors that had been thrown at her. The silence also gave Evelyn the opportunity to think about what she might say to Clem on Karen’s behalf. Honestly, Clem was as stubborn a mammal as she’d ever encountered and though Karen seemed to have faith in Evelyn’s ability to dissuade him from fighting, Evelyn had serious doubts. She and Clem understood and respected each other, but part of that respect was not telling each other what to do.
But Evelyn had to admit that her lack of enthusiasm for seeing Clem was due to more than just the fruitlessness of talking him out of fighting the Vulke. Part of her was dreading seeing him so soon after his unspeakable experience. She didn’t want to see Clem broken. It was selfish really. He might need her support, might desperately want to see her, and she wanted to spare herself the sorrow of interacting with a Clem who’d been tortured and scarred.
She wanted Clem whole and healthy, joking and supporting her instead of the other way around. As Evelyn laid her guilty head down on the pillow, one final thought followed her into sleep: it is my turn.
23
The hulking man came at Allen again. He dodged a blow aimed at his side and feigned a kick to make it look like he was fighting back, instead of just luring the man to the edge of the lighted ring. Unfortunately, the other man lunged at Allen again and caught him off balance, landing a vicious kick on Allen’s torso. Letting out a low grunt that his bark collar didn’t register as sound, Allen allowed the force of the blow to knock him over, but deftly rolled even closer to the threshold of illumination. As he got up, he eyed his armed captors watching from the sidelines. Once enthralled by the fights and prone to cheering, jeering, and betting, they now stood listless and silent, impatient for a victor to emerge.
From slight changes that had been taking place over the past few days, Allen knew that whatever it was they had been training the captives for was close at hand. There were more fights and just recently there was an observer that Allen didn’t recognize, but from the way the rest of his captors bowed their necks in his presence, had to be some kind of boss-man or head honcho. There was also a lot more chatter between the guards, most of which didn’t make any sense to Allen, but all of which hinted at a nearing deadline of sorts. If he was going to make a move to escape, it had to be now. Just a little closer, he thought. He baited the other man with a rude gesture, since speaking would have caused his collar to go off, sending an electric shock and searing pain through his body, and the man charged again, this time with beefy arms and huge, clutching hands held out in front of him.
Allen waited as long as he dared, darted to the side, and then spun and ran into the darkness outside of the fighting spotlights. He had no idea where he was going, just that he had to put as much distance between himself and his captors, their guns, and their cattle prods as possible. He had to get free, find his family, and make sure that he got them away some place safe where these crazy bastards couldn’t find them. Allen had rested and babied his bad leg in preparation for this moment, but his injured ankle still sent pain shooting up his leg every time he put his full weight on it. Skirting around a pile of factory debris on the side closer to the other man’s handlers, Allen hoped they would be more preoccupied with their own charge.
It was dark and difficult to see beyond just a few feet in front of him, and he dreaded tripping or running into something sharp or falling into a pit. Cries and shouts echoed all around him in the blackness, bouncing off the bare concrete floor and metal walls. He reached a wall, but there were no windows or doors, and Allen frantically felt his way along, praying for a hole, a broken window, an emergency exit, anything. As he scrabbled along, his blindness was alleviated but his terror renewed when he spotted the beam of a flashlight not far away. Crouching down to avoid its ray, Allen sliced his hand on a sharp corner of metal jutting out of the wall. It took a monumental effort of will and his recent extensive practice of silence not to cry out. Cautiously feeling for the jagged edge again, Allen’s fingers touched metal slats and he realized that it was a heating or cooling vent that had been partially torn away from the wall. He grasped the bent metal with both hands and pulled with as much strength as he could muster to pry the grate out further.
The scraping of metal on metal made a terrible noise, but the cacophony of his pursuers masked most of the sound. The flashlight was getting closer, so Allen had no choice but to try to squeeze himself through the modest gap he had made. As he dove in head first his mind flashed to terrible images of his captors grabbing his legs and hauling him back out, but he buried his panic under a thin layer of hope and wiggled his body forward. The inside of the vent was filthy and the dust, dirt, and debris, not to mention his slick, bloody hand, made it impossible to get purchase enough to drag his entire body inside. Allen’s hips got caught up in the small opening and the metal side of the vent cover bit into his skin. Sure that he would be caught stuck half in and half out of the vent, Allen wondered if they would torture him there, maybe break his protruding legs, or if they would just shoot him.
The horrific images made him thrust with his legs in one last desperate effort, and with an agonizing rending of flesh, his hips slid free and he managed to get on his hands and knees and begin crawling away. Allen felt like a rat as he scuttled along inside the vent. It was tar black, claustrophobic, and he kept choking on the stale and dusty air, with God knows what making the dust taste rancid and toxic. The bleeding wound on his hand was soon caked shut with dirt, but his side throbbed with every movement and felt hot and sticky. On and on he crawled, without any idea how much progress he was actually making. Occasionally his hands would scrape against another vent, but these were all tightly sealed and gave no indication of giving way to an exit.
Allen’s panic broke free and his breathing turned to gasps with the idea that he had only succeeded in trapping himself in the tight, grimy confines of a metal coffin. Should he come upon a dead end, he didn’t even have enough space to turn around. The echoing voices seemed fainter, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was getting away from them, or because his ears were filled with grit from the vent tunnel. Then, without warning, his hands slipped forward into emptiness. Pitching down, he half slid and half fell into a near-vertical shaft. Not knowing how deep the shaft was or what might lie at the bottom, Allen tried to brace his arms and legs against the walls to arrest his fall. In his delirium he recalled a part of his daughter’s favorite movie, The Labyrinth, when the main character is falling into an oubliette, and “helping hands” in the walls grab onto her.
His efforts shredded the flesh of his outstretched limbs, but also slowed his descent. Allen did know one thing that the girl in the movie didn’t seem to: down was bad. He knew that down led to the dungeon of tiny rooms that he and others were being kept in, and not to a way out, but as he slowed to a stop, he knew he wouldn’t be able to climb all the way back up again. For a moment he just held his position as tears of anguish and desolation leaked from his eyes. Then his arms and legs began to shake, and he felt that they would give out at any moment.
A notion occurred to him then. If he did let go, there was a good chance he would break his neck in the fall. Maybe this is my way out. They won’t be able to hurt me anymore. But then he thought of his family, and how he couldn’t be sure of their safety once he was gone. He couldn’t abandon them. Steeling himself, Allen tried to inch upwards, but his foot slipped and he ended up sliding down instead, and then he felt an opening underneath his foot. Pressing into the sides of the shaft with his arms, he halted his descent. Gradually, he lowered his body until the tips of his knees were hanging onto the bottom ledge of the opening, and he was bent forward so that the top of his head was braced against the top of the new horizontal shaft.
Allen’s arms were screaming with agony due to the unnatural angles they were twisted in, but he was now in position. With a burst of strength, he pushed his arms off the walls and fell face first into the horizontal shaft. He lay there panting and trying not to think about the pain in his arms and legs, or the throbbing in his side, or the fogginess of exhaustion that threatened to overcome him. Allen concentrated solely on breathing, and in time thought that either he was hallucinating or that the air smelled less stale here.
Willpower, more than strength or energy, kept him inching along the tunnel. He couldn’t seem to figure out how to get up onto his hands and knees, but instead army-crawled along, taking care to feel his way before each drag onwards. Stars clouded his vision, rupturing forth with a glamour of false light, and forced him to close his eyes and focus on touch to guide him. Fearing that he would pass out in the shaft and die of exhaustion or suffocation or thirst, Allen jerked his head up violently each time he felt himself slipping away into the comfort of sleep. As his hands felt their way over dead rodents, past moving and clicking insects, and through spider webs, Allen wondered if he had fall
en asleep and was now in a nightmare of his mind’s creation. Maybe I didn’t stop myself from plummeting down the shaft. Maybe I’m lying unconscious at the bottom.
Allen didn’t feel like he could be sure that anything was real and as his pains faded away he found it more and more difficult to concentrate on moving forward. Eventually he forgot what he was doing all together and wondered why he didn’t just stop and rest for a while. Then he felt a cool breeze on his face. He opened his eyes and just ahead of him was a shade of black that wasn’t quite as dark as the rest of the tunnel had been. Squirming like a worm wriggling its way to the surface from deep within the dirt of a fresh grave, he tumbled through a hole and down several feet, landing on his back on cold gravel.
He stared up at cloudy night sky and the faint outline of a large, still fan in the wall of a huge building. He was outside, and wild elation exploded inside of him, nearly causing him to cry out in joy before he remembered that he was still wearing his shock collar. Hearing angry voices out in the night, his elation withered with the knowledge that he was still in danger. He heaved himself over onto his stomach and looked away from the building. An open stony yard spread out before him with an overturned metal barrel about ten feet away, a pile of metal and wood scraps a few feet beyond that, and then a beautiful line of darkness that Allen took to be trees. The tree line was his true escape, and as Allen hauled himself upright on a piece of discarded machinery, he prayed that there wasn’t a fence hidden in the shadows.
