A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets)

by Michael Lampman

  The black wolf lifted Jimmy up off the ground, pulled him closer, and twisted his arm.

  He screamed as the pain rushed through his entire right side.

  The black wolf loved the sound. Jimmy could almost see him smile.

  Rachel crawled around the floor. It seemed hard to do; everywhere she looked, she found it covered with nothing but dirt and the chards of broken wood and glass. Some of the pieces dug into the palms of her hands as she crawled. Each one hurt more than the first. Each one caused her to wince from the pain they caused, but she tried not to pay any of them any mind. She had only one mission, and only one thing she cared about doing. She had to find the drug. She had to find it and now. She followed the direction she came from, searching, groping the floor. With the pieces of glass everywhere, it made it difficult to see the vial. Everything looked the same. Everything looked like glass.

  The black wolf brought Jimmy up towards its face. It wanted to look into his eyes as he ended his life. This felt like the culmination for everything. He couldn’t wait to see it. He couldn’t wait to do it. He couldn’t wait to watch him die.

  Rachel looked back to the opening of the wall. That area still looked somewhat clear of debris and being that way, that’s where she saw something glimmering in the moonlight. The vial looked like it shined with a bright blue tint. It did exactly what Sasha told her it did. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t care. She found it, and that’s all that mattered.

  She flung herself to the vial. She picked it up into her left hand, and held it up to look at it closely. The bottle looked intact. The fluid was still in it. She saw it sparkle with a bright bluish hue. Now I have to find the damn syringe. Again, she looked over the floor. Near a single piece of wood, sitting all alone not two feet from her, she found it. She went to it without another thought. She took it into her right hand, and with it firmly gripped, she took off the protective plastic cap off the needle. She took the vial and plunged the needle through the cap. She filled the needle quickly. When it was, she turned back to both of the wolves.

  They were on the other side of the barn from her. She knew what she had to do. She had to run. She had to fly if she could. She had to get there before it was too late.

  The black wolf came down. It chose the spot between the shoulder and throat. It wanted him to feel everything it did. It wanted him to suffer as much as possible. It wanted him to feel every bit of the pain that it lived with for decades now.

  The bite felt intense. Jimmy yelped, feeling the teeth puncture his flesh. With his left arm, he swung at the black wolf’s right arm, but it nearly felt hopeless to relieve the pain it caused him. He tried anyway. He had to do it. He didn’t have the choice.

  Rachel heard him scream. She could almost feel his pain. She heard enough.

  She ran at them with everything she had. She let the needle lead her to the black wolf’s back. She wasn’t trying to aim where to stick him, so it just wasn’t even a thought.

  The needle found the mark. It plunged right into the very center of the black wolf’s back.

  Feeling the pierce, the black wolf screamed. He lifted his head. He let go of Jimmy and spilled him to his pawed feet, and turned around. He saw Rachel there.

  She took a deep breath. She also felt satisfied. The syringe looked empty. She did everything she intended to do with it.

  The black wolf reached for the spot at its back, found the needle, and pulled it out. It brought it between them, and looked at it with wonder.

  “Got you, you son of a bitch.” Rachel smiled. She caught her breath.

  The black wolf looked down at the syringe, holding it almost subtly, almost like it wasn’t sure of what it held. It just looked at it and its eyes grew wide. It looked from it and back up to Rachel.

  She took a step back and then two and then three. She waited for it to take effect. She waited and couldn’t wait to see it happen.

  And, it did happen.

  The wolf lifted its head up and let out a howl as loud as any sound any wolf ever made. It bellowed. It rattled the rafters above its head. It called out, singing an endless long song, until eventually, almost slowly, the howl started to ebb and become what sounded like a man’s scream.

  Rachel watched its ears shrink back down at the sides of his head. She watched as his snout grew shorter becoming a simple nose. She watched as the black hair disappeared over his body, revealing just a simple tan colored skin. She watched, as he grew shorter, back to a more human height. She watched as the black wolf disappeared and Gary reemerged. It was such a beautiful sight, so much so, she actually felt like crying.

  Gary stood there, feeling the wolf vanish from his mind. The rage for it disappeared, and bellowed through his soul. What did she do to him? How could she? He couldn’t believe it. It felt like a nightmare. It felt like the worse feeling in the world.

  Jimmy stood back to his hind paws as he listened to the call. He listened to the bellow. He heard the screams. He knew instantly what it meant.

  Gary fell to his knees as he dropped the syringe. He looked back up to Rachel with weary eyes. How could she do this to him? He loved her. He always had.

  Jimmy left the back wall, and walked towards Gary. He made a broad shaking motion of his head, looking like any other animal would look as it tried to rinse itself of a wet coat. His left arm still burned, but he slowly started to regain his control of it. He reached up with his right hand, and felt only a little of the bite to his shoulder. Everything burned. Everything hurt. He walked around Gary, kneeling on the floor, and stepped in between him and Rachel.

  Gary watched him step in front of him. When he did, he had to bow his head. He had to bow his eyes towards the floor. It defeated him, and with it, it now felt over. He knew it. His time was finished. The feeling and thought of it didn’t last. At his knees, something caught his attention. He saw his revolver, and seeing it, he knew that he could reach it. He knew that he would be able to use it, and use it, he would. It gave him hope. It gave him a chance. It at least gave him an opportunity to put up a good and healthy fight.

  Jimmy looked down at the top of his head. He sighed, realizing that all of his pain was now at an end. This was it. This was the end. This had to be a new beginning.

  Gary took a hold of the weapon and brought it up. “Never!” he screamed with all he had. He shouted his pain into the air. He shouted for the world to hear his voice.

  Jimmy saw what it was. He reached out without thinking, and reached for his neck. With swiftness and strength, he took the sides of his head and turned. A cracking sound flew throughout the room, just as a sharp banging sound came out at the same time.

  Rachel jumped with both sounds. Her heart fluttered with all of it.

  His head came off so completely, that only a hint of a blood’s spray was all that remained above his shoulders. Instantly, his body went limp. His heart pounded and then stopped. His lungs spewed all of their wind with one giant gust of air.

  Jimmy dropped the head to his feet. He took a deep breath, smelling the blood spray out in front of him. He lifted his head and howled long and hard towards the rafters. It felt finished. The black wolf was dead, and victory never felt so sweet.

  Brandon came to his senses, feeling dazed. He felt lost. He wasn’t even sure that he remembered where he even was. Thankfully, it didn’t last all that long. It took only moments, and when he heard the howling come from behind the wood that covered him, he pushed it off him and looked to the center of the barn. With it gone, he felt the pain in his leg. He looked to it and could see the piece of wood sticking through it just above the knee. He took an end of it with both hands and pulled. It burned. It screamed agony. He pulled it out and tossed it beside him. Instantly, he felt better. Instantly, the burning in his leg stopped. He climbed to his hands and knees and then to his feet. He stood with rather shaking legs. He could see Jimmy standing in front of the man. He could see his head removed, and could hear a loud firecracker sound echo around the wolf in front of h
im. He watched Jimmy then drop the head. He watched the man’s body slowly fall away to his left. He could see that he was dead before he even hit the ground. It looked over. Everything felt done.

  Rachel watched Gary fall away. It all looked like such a gruesome sight that she had to close her eyes to it. She had to look away, and couldn’t bring herself to see anything more of what just happened.

  Jimmy watched the body fall. He took a deep breath. The heat in his chest he didn’t feel at first, but when he did, he reached up with both hands and clasped it. Blood already started flowing down from between his chest and his belly. He could feel it, warm and almost feeling unforgiving. He turned, with both hands still up, and looked back to Rachel. His head already started to fade. He already started to feel himself slip away. Jimmy was there at the back of his thoughts, and he started to come forwards. He came so fast that he felt himself almost pushed aside by his strength.

  Rachel looked back and saw him turn. She didn’t see the wound at first, until he dropped his arms some towards his hips. She looked straight to the streak of blood that coursed its way down the front of his chest. She followed it to the center of his hips. It was hard to see, until the black fur began to grow thin again and fade away. She watched his face turn back to Jimmy’s normal color and look, and that’s when she saw it. It looked like a bullet hole. It looked like a direct shot into the center of his chest. Seeing it and realizing what it meant, her eyes grew wide and she turned her stare to his face.

  Kalima was gone, and Jimmy was there again. He could feel his breaths fading. He could feel his heart aching, trying to do what it meant to do, but had trouble with doing it. He then felt his legs grow weak. He felt them give way, until they forced him to stumble back. He grew light headed. His mind grew dim. He fell back, unable to keep himself standing.

  She watched him fall to the roof of the car. He hit it with his back, and slid down it until he sat right in front of it. Her heart flared with seeing everything. “Jimmy? Oh my God Jimmy, no.” She rushed him, and stopped at his feet. She went to his right side and kneeled down at his side. She could now see the wound clearly. It looked like a gunshot. She could still see the blood oozing from the hole.

  “Thank you.” He smiled. He was now fully himself again. Tears now formed in both of his eyes. They began to streak down the sides of his face and down his cheeks.

  “For what?” she had to ask. Her heart began to ache. It began to sink. It began to show its fear for everything that happened. She couldn’t believe any of it. She didn’t want to. She hated everything she saw.

  His face instantly grew white. His eyes seemingly gleamed with tears. He looked scared. He looked worried. He looked like he was fading away, in which he was. “I should have done so much more than what I did. I should have done everything.” He winced. His voice sounded trembling. His mind became the same.

  “Jimmy?” She rushed both hands to his chest, feeling the undying need to clasp the wound. She wanted to stop the bleeding. She wanted to stop it from leaking away his life.

  “It’s okay.” He smiled. He dropped his hands to his sides. He felt winded. He felt cold, suddenly. He felt himself fading away. “It doesn’t hurt.” He realized that he didn’t feel pain. He didn’t feel the burning. He felt nothing but tired.

  Her eyes now started to tear too.

  Brandon watched him fall. He rushed to him and joined his friend at his side, opposite from where Rachel was already kneeling. Looking down at his friend, he saw the wound. He saw the blood. He too, started to cry. His friend couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave him. How dare he even try to do such a thing to him?

  Jimmy watched him come over to him and kneel down. He then turned his eyes back to hers. “I’ve never told you how much I love you Rachel.” He winced. It started growing harder to breathe. It seemingly took everything he had to say what he did, but he wanted to say it. He needed to tell her how much he truly loved her.

  Rachel bowed her eyes. “I love you too.” Under her palms, his blood continued to flow. Beneath the blood, she could feel his heart straining. She felt it slow, almost to an idle rhythm. She felt his breathing fade. She didn’t want to feel it and had to release her grip.

  He smiled. Her words sounded like magic to his ears. They sounded like music playing on a rainy day. He loved the sound of her voice, but loved the words more than the sound. “I’ll always,” he paused. His breathing grew shorter. He could feel a darkness coming towards him. He could feel his life slipping away. “I’ll always love you and I always will.” The darkness came. It enveloped his thoughts. His mind went to that blackness, and fell to nothing after it reached it.

  He breathed one last gasp, until she noticed that his breathing stopped. His eyes went wide. He’s gone. She blinked. Her eyes drenched over. The love of her life was gone.

  Brandon and Rachel bowed their heads, as they both cried their tears. He left them. Their friend was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

  37

  The night felt so calm. The trees cast shadows all around him. He found himself walking through the cool shadows of the forest. He stepped around each tree with an effortless stride. Where he was, he wasn’t sure. The feeling of being familiar with the place stuck to his mind. It somehow felt almost like home to him. It seemed like he had been there before. It almost felt like some kind of a distant memory. It all felt like a dream. It felt like a deep sleep. He tried so hard to grasp onto the feeling, but it all seemed so hard to see it for what it really was. He felt like a sleepwalker, moving through the deep recesses of the world. Up ahead, he could see a soft moonlit clearing, coming towards him. It felt like magic. He couldn’t tell if he walked to it or it moved to him. He moved around a single tree and stepped to the clearing’s edge. He could see someone standing in the center of it, bathed within the moonlight. He walked into the clearing and there he stopped. He went to him.

  “Kenny?” He stepped one more step, and stopped just by a tree. He saw the man, as he turned around and faced him. Seeing him, he couldn’t believe who it was. He looked so strong. He looked whole. Hell—he looked alive. “Kenny is that you?” He took another step towards him and stopped again.

  “Hello my new friend.” Kenny smiled. The moonlight looked so bright around both of them that it made him look almost blue. It made everything feel even more strange than it already seemed to be.

  Jimmy stepped another two-steps and stopped directly in front of where he stood. In fact, they were now both standing nearly toe-to-toe. “You’re dead?” he asked him. He still couldn’t believe it was him. He still couldn’t believe he was there. The memory of him dying on his bed still felt fresh, and being that, it had to be someone else. “You died. You died in my arms.”

  “It is me my friend. And yes,” He turned some but kept his eyes on him. “I am dead.” His smile widened. His face looked soft. He looked like he was only in his mid-forties, if not younger than that. He looked younger than he looked when he last saw him, but even with that said; he still looked the same.

  “I don’t understand,” Jimmy winced.

  Kenny reached his arms out and placed them strongly onto both of his shoulders. “And so are you.” He squeezed.

  Jimmy took a deep breath. “I’m dead?” The memory of lying there, looking up to Rachel still seemed so strong on his mind, but it all still seemed almost like nothing more than just a dream. Everything seemed faded, almost like it was stuck in the middle of a fog. Nothing seemed real about it. Everything seemed far and removed from his very own mind.

  Kenny laughed. “You did well, my friend. You were strong. You fought well.” He squeezed his shoulders again.

  Jimmy bowed his eyes and then looked up again. “I don’t understand. Where is this place?” He could see movement behind Kenny, off in the trees, on the other side of where they stood, and watched as a large black mass came towards them. When it stepped out into the moonlight, he looked at who it was with the widest of eyes. He could see a large wolf moving towards the
m walking on its hind legs. It had a deep colored black fur coat. It had white around its snout. He sighed with seeing it. It had to be Kalima. It just had to be him. “Kalima?” His eyes grew larger, realizing what he just said. His face went blank. His mind followed both.

  Kenny turned and watched his friend step out from the trees behind him.

  Kalima walked to Kenny’s side, and stopped right beside him. He looked tall, and being so, he placed his right hand to the top of Kenny’s long black hair.

  Jimmy’s mind exploded with questions. He felt quite simply in shock. “I don’t understand any of this. Why do I see him? Why are you here?”

  Kenny dropped his arms. “You are in the spirit world my friend. You both are here.” He nodded as he said what he did. “This is the only place I’ve ever known, Jimmy. This place is my home away from home. I’ve been here so many times before that it never feels like I leave it.” It felt all so right to him. Now, Jimmy was there. “You both have come here now. That means that this is your home now too.” He smiled.

  “I’m dead?” Jimmy bowed his eyes and then brought them up again. He didn’t doubt what he heard, he had no reason to do so, but still, this all seemed too much to comprehend at once. He, quite frankly, didn’t understand any of it.

  Kenny again laughed. He took his left hand and wrapped it around Kalima’s waist. “You are in between worlds my young friend. Your being here tells me that you are meant to be here too. You have crossed over to the world of the dead. You have come home.”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  Kalima moaned a soft bellow of air.

  “This is the place we go when we die. This is where we live when we’re not living.”

  Jimmy took a deep breath, loud and almost unforgiving. “Why?”

  “We are what we are Jimmy.” Kenny looked up to Kalima. He then looked back to Jimmy again. “You have found this place. You have found it like he has. You two are one.”