“You know,” a voice came from behind him so suddenly that it made his heart skip a beat.
He turned and watched Gary step to the back of the car. Even from there, he could see that he was completely naked. Even from there, he could see what looked like blood on his right shoulder, just near the side of his neck. Even from there, he could see that it was in the same place that he saw it on the black wolf’s back. Seeing it, he dropped his mouth open with total disbelief. “You Gary? It’s you.”
“If I knew what you were back then I would have finished you off. I wouldn’t have let you get away like you did. I would have killed you slowly. I would have made you truly suffer for the pain you caused me.” Gary stopped at the back fender of the car. He took a deep and exaggerated breath.
“You? How?” Jimmy turned. He faced him. He tried to catch his breaths but he couldn’t seem to manage it. He felt too dumfounded to be able to do it properly. “It was you the whole time.” He gasped.
Gary bowed his blue eyes. The lights, several of them hanging over his head from the rafters, made the mustache above his lip look more like dirt than actual hair. “You look shocked?” He lifted his eyes back up. “Imagine how I felt when I found out what you were. What we were.” He spoke so softly that his voice sounded more like a whisper than anything else did.
Jimmy finally caught his breaths. “How?” He couldn’t help himself. It took everything he had just to say this.
Gary brought his left hip to the side of the car. The pain in his shoulder still burned, but he could feel that it had already started to lighten up some. It made his breathing feel more normal. It made him feel more able to tell his tale. “She was so beautiful. She was so happy. She was my life; you know that? She was everything to me.” He bowed his head some. “I was working that day, like I always did. She couldn’t wait to tell me the good news. When I came home, she decided to take me out to dinner. We met each other the first time at this fine restaurant just on the Upper East Side, so she wanted to take me there again to tell me. She was so excited that she couldn’t even wait to tell me before we got there. She decided to take me through the park before dinner. Back then, you didn’t have to worry about walking through the park at night. Things were simpler then. When she told me, I almost exploded. I almost lost my mind. I felt so happy. I felt so proud.”
Jimmy listened, feeling his heartbeat strain some. He couldn’t help himself. As he listened, it grew stronger at first and then slowed again. It bounced. Nothing he heard made any sense, so he continued to listen. He continued to pay him his complete attention.
Gary crossed his arms over his bare chest. With it, the pain raced through his arms, so much so, he had to drop them back to his sides. “She was pregnant.” He turned his burning eyes towards Jimmy.
Hearing that, Jimmy winced. His thoughts faded. His heart slowed. Numbness exploded over his soul.
Gary obviously turned angry. His voice ebbed lower. His eyes grew large and turned unforgiving. “It was going to be our first child. It was going to be what we tried so hard to have. It was ours. It was mine.” He had sweat forming on his forehead. His breathing picked up pace. “As I said, walking through the park was never dangerous back then. We didn’t think anything of it. We didn’t, until it came—until you came.”
With that Jimmy tried to swallow but couldn’t. He now felt more than just numb; he became almost nauseous all at once. In his mind, his thoughts turned back to the dream. He could see the couple in the park, walking down the road. He could see them come towards him at the bend through the trees. He could see them holding each other, locked together arm to arm. He could see the man’s blonde hair flutter some in the slight summer breeze. He looked up from the memory, and looked back to Gary. He tried to place the hair with what he saw. He tried to place the face, but he couldn’t. It was too dark to see him. He just couldn’t see his face.
“You came out so fast. I felt the bite to the back of my neck, so quickly that I didn’t know what happened. I felt the cement of the sidewalk strike my face. I could even feel the blood streaming down into my eyes. I felt so helpless to stop it. I felt so helpless to stop you.”
As he spoke, Jimmy turned back to the memory. As he heard the words, he pictured everything he did again in his mind. It all fit. It fit like a glove. He looked back to Gary and their eyes met. “You were dead. You stopped moving,” he said without thinking much about it.
Gary blinked. “I stopped moving—yes—but not dead.” He laughed some, but it didn’t sound like one that a person makes when they heard something funny. In fact, it sounded more like sarcasm through and through. When he finished, his eyes looked like they were on fire. “I lived on. I survived.”
Now Jimmy began to feel himself grow hot. How could he have done what he did? “He never meant for that Gary. He never meant for any of it. He never meant to kill your child.” His face lit up on fire. His cheeks flared with heat. He felt suddenly exposed. He felt suddenly completely guilty confronting the one that he caused all of that damage to, if not more than that. He did feel that he should explain what happened. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to make excuses for what he did.
“Stop!” Gary’s voice turned to a growl. The sound bellowed and bounced off the walls. It sounded like a thunderclap had just raked the inside wooden walls around both of them.
Jimmy blinked again. He continued to try to swallow but couldn’t. He felt helpless. He felt saddened. He felt completely wrong.
“You have no right to defend what you did.” Gary stepped away from the side of the car. He took two steps closer to where Jimmy was standing. His body trembled some with the anger that now flared through his chest, so he felt forced to have to take a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time to lose his control. Now wasn’t the time to end his nightmare of life. He wanted to enjoy this. He wanted the freak to know everything he felt for decades now. The breath did work. It gave him the chance to calm. He tried hard, and did succeed with it. His heart subsided. His mind cleared, so he continued with his story.
Jimmy bowed his eyes. He looked to the floor of the barn.
Nothing but stones and dirt covered the ground.
“When I woke up the next morning in the hospital they told me what happened. They told me of the animal attack. They told me that my wife was ripped apart. They told me that my baby was gone. They told me that I would live on. They told me that I was lucky to be alive. They told me that I would heal from the wounds.” Gary turned slightly, back to the car. He placed his left hand to the top of the roof. He needed the support of it to keep his mind cool. He needed something to lean on. He needed all of the help that he could get. His mind flowed. His head was getting dizzy. He always felt like this when he thought about that night. It made his entire body ache with the pain of all that he lost. “Do you know what it’s like to lose everything? Do you know what it’s like to lose your life but be told that you would live on any way?” He took another deep breath, turned from the roof, and back to the freak. “Do you?”
Jimmy picked his head up, but he kept his eyes down low. He couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eyes. He didn’t like what he heard. With that, he knew that he wouldn’t want to see it either. With the questions, all he could do was shake his head to answer them. What else could he have done?
“No. You don’t.” Gary stood back up straight, but kept facing the car. “Then you can’t imagine what I felt like when that first full moon came. I spent weeks trying to find out what took my life away. I spent weeks trying to find the animal that took her away from me. With that full moon, I got my answer. What I found out—became my new nightmare.” He looked back over his right shoulder to the freak. “I changed. I became what this—this is. I became the very thing that I hated. I am that thing.”
That brought Jimmy’s eyes up. “I can help you Gary,” he had flash out of his mouth, almost on its own. He tried hard to find the right words to say, but they were hard to find. He did his best with what he had
rolling through his head. “We can help each other.” He blinked. He had to do something. He had to say something. In a way, he knew exactly what Gary said. He knew what he must have felt too. He, like him, never had a choice. He became something that he didn’t understand. He became something that he didn’t know how to answer. What he tried to offer him now, only made sense. They could help each other find those answers. He had nothing else left to give him.
With that, Gary chuckled some. “You mean, help each other learn about ourselves. Help each other find a way to live with what we are.” He looked back to the dark colored roof of his car. “I know why I am this. I don’t need to have an answer for what I am.”
With that, Jimmy took one-step forward. What he heard made his mind almost ache. It made it fly into many different directions. None of where he just went with this, made any sense at all. “Gary?”
He watched the step. “Stop!”
Jimmy did stop.
Gary saw him. “After I learned what I was, I tried to take my own life. I tried to end it. I tried to stop it.” He turned back to him. “I tried every way I could think of to kill myself. Each time I failed of course. Every time I tried, I couldn’t do it. It’s impossible to kill something that refuses to die. It couldn’t be done. That’s when I realized what I had to do. That’s when the answer came back to me with a blindly bright light. I knew what I had to do.” He gauged the freak’s face. He looked for any sign that he understood where he was leading him to go. However, all he saw was nothing but confusion written on his face. Seeing it, he calmed even more. It made him relaxed. That made him content to continue. “I knew that I had to use it to find the one that took her life. I had to find the one that took both of them. I had to use it to get my revenge.”
Jimmy swallowed. He was again lost for words.
Gary smiled. “I took it as my mission. I searched for years, for decades, trying to find the one that I was looking for. I searched the dredges at the bottom of society. I searched in the shadows. I searched for the one. It was a long and hard time. After several decades of pointless searching, I finally came across someone that seemed to be able to give me some peace of mind. Richard Ross had a new pet that he needed help with. When I saw him for the first time, that pet, I finally felt calm. I finally felt like I had a purpose. I finally felt like I would get my revenge. I never thought that he was the one that changed me. Collins was simply a need to wreak havoc. He was simply there to learn from it. He was there for my own fun.”
Jimmy watched him carefully. He listened with intent. When he came to talking about Collins and what he said about him, he had to come in. “You mean brutalize him?” He could still see them striking him with cattle prods when they locked him in the cage. He could still see him shoot him from behind in the back after he bit him. He could see all of it.
Gary laughed. “He deserved so much more than that. I tried to convince Ross to kill the thing. I tried to give him reasons to do it, but he just wouldn’t listen. He was convinced that it would help find what he was looking for. That is until you came to work at the labs. I saw you that night, wandering into his room. I saw you let him out. After that, I knew you had just given me the chance to end him.” He smiled, staring the freak down.
Listening, Jimmy winced. “You killed those joggers. You killed those people, all to get the chance to kill Collins. Why would you do that?”
Gary laughed again. “A man has to eat.” The laugh grew louder, and then dimmed as he continued. “I thought Ross would never let you get away with killing them. I never knew how much he would actually let you get away with. He loved you; you know that? Even after that, he still couldn’t bring himself to let me kill you.”
“You killed those innocent people. Did you ever think about their families? Did it ever cross your mind?”
Gary’s face grew serious fast. “To get the chance to end it—to end you—hell yes.” He took a deep breath. “Even wanting that, I still never knew that it was him that did it. I never thought that it was you. Until,” It was time to divulge how he found out the secret. He turned to the back door of his car and opened it, reached in and took the book from the floor behind the front seat. He brought it out and held it up to the freak.
Jimmy watched him carefully. When he saw his journal, one of the ones that Collins wrote in, his heart almost sank into his stomach. He felt more exposed than he ever felt before.
Gary looked at the book in front of his face before he dropped it down to his side. “When I saw the date, I knew what it was. I read it. I understood it. I knew it was you.”
Jimmy held his breath.
“I couldn’t believe it. I had the fucker the whole time. I had Collins. I could have ended this long ago.”
“You did.” Jimmy finally breathed.
Gary nodded. “But then I found out about you. I found out that he bit you. I found out that he lived on. I was just content to kill you at first. When I found out that you lived through my shooting you, and then I found out about those freaks in New York, I had to rid the world of all of you. And, I did, except you kept getting away. It was you. You were the one. You were the one that took her—took them away from me.”
Jimmy blinked. He began to feel that there was no hope of reaching this man. There was no hope in helping him. He had decades to dwell within his hate. He had too long to live with his pain. He felt hopeless, and with that, there was only one thing left for him to do. He would have to end it. He would have to end him. He wouldn’t stop. He would go on, forever, to try to end him. “Why did you kill them? They didn’t do anything to you.”
Gary dropped the book at his feet. The sound of it hitting the dirt floor echoed slightly around the walls. “I didn’t know that at first. Besides, none of you deserved to live anyway. I had to end all of you. I had to. I had no choice.”
Jimmy thought about all of his friends. He could see all of their faces. Marie was there the strongest. Her black hair sparkled in the memory of them lying next to the fire on the bed. He could see every strand of hair. He could see every line on her face. It all looked so clear. It felt just like it happened yesterday. He could see all of them so clearly. With their faces, his own rage came up from the dark recesses of his mind. With it all, he could feel the fact that Gary had no right to end their lives. He was the guilty one here. He was the one that deserved that death, not them. Especially for what happened with Kenny. “And Kenny? What reason did you justify to take his life?” he shot that thought out of his mouth with a low ebbing growl.
Gary truly felt shocked with what he just heard. “Who?”
Jimmy griped the butt of the pistol tighter in his right hand. “The old man up the road. Why him? He wasn’t even one of us. He surely didn’t deserve what you did to him.”
“I am not one of you!” Gary shot back with fire. The growl of the wolf came up in his throat. It rumbled around the room with fire.
“Why?” Jimmy growled with one of his own. It wasn’t the wolf, but only his own anger still growing in his chest.
Gary turned full force to him.
His actions made Jimmy have to grip the handle tighter. He was ready to use it the first chance he felt that he was going to need it. When that was, he knew the time was coming soon. He could feel it, but first, he needed to know the answer to his questions. It was his turn to ask them.
Gary laughed. “The old man.” His laugh turned into a slight chuckle. “I truly had no idea who he was. I smelled him. He smelled different. I was just curious about him. I went there only to find out why that was. I wanted to know who or what he was.”
“Why kill him?”
Gary shook his head.
He didn’t want to kill him that much Jimmy could see and feel. He truly regretted that he did it, but it still didn’t answer why he did do it.
“I didn’t mean to, but he knew that I was there. He knew I was watching him. Somehow, he knew what I was. He started it. He started the fight.”
“Started it?”
Gary bowed his eyes. “He gave me no choice. He struck me with lightning. He hurt me.”
Lightning? Jimmy also looked to the floor. He knew wanderers had special gifts, but never knew what those were. He suddenly felt impressed with the thought of it.
“He was a friend of yours?” Gary looked up. It finally dawned on him that Jimmy had even asked about him in the first place. Feeling that
Jimmy loved him satisfied him some that he killed him after all. It comforted him. It made the pain of killing him fade away with the thought.
That brought Jimmy’s eyes up.
Gary could see the hurt in those eyes. “When he lied there dying,” He had to continue, but now he felt the need to make the words hurt. He loved the fact that they did. It only added to everything in his mind.
Jimmy’s eyes grew larger.
Gary liked the look. “He asked me who I was. Apparently, he couldn’t see me. My soul, it seems, is too dark to cast the glow.” He chuckled again. He now felt better. He felt pleased. He felt right again.
Jimmy shook his own head in his mind. That was why he never saw the glow around Gary. In all this time, he couldn’t remember ever seeing one. He had to force his memories back, but found nothing there. He looked dark. He didn’t even have the glow of humans around him. Again, the answer was there the whole time.
Gary looked towards the freak’s left. A sweet smell now flowed through the air, and it grew stronger. It grew even more intense. He knew the smell. He loved it so much that he would never miss it, even if he wanted to do it. With it, he knew Rachel was coming. In fact, she was now almost at the door. Any minute now, she would open the side door and come inside. With her scent, his heart grew achy. It grew stronger.
Jimmy saw him smell the air. Seeing it, it forced him to take a deep breath as well, and when her scent came back, his heart tore open almost like a knife had just cut through his chest. He could smell her sweetness. He could smell her coming. She didn’t listen to me again. When is she ever going to listen to me, came rushing out of his soul.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 76
