Kalima continued whining. He whimpered.
Jimmy looked up to him with a raised neck. Their eyes met, and he almost melted by it. “Why is he still—um—the wolf?”
Kenny laughed again. “He has been this way for so long now this is what he is now. He is what he is.”
Although he wasn’t sure, Jimmy could almost swear that he heard Kalima also laugh. “I see.” He looked back to Kenny. “Why? Why am I here like this?”
Kenny continued his smile. “You are one of us Jimmy. You, me, and Kalima are all the same. You are special. You are you.”
Jimmy shrugged again. “What does that mean?” He locked his eyes on both of them in turn, turning back and forth between them, was about to say something else, ask another of the many questions that flared inside his head, but found himself cut off by a howling coming through the trees. The sound seemed to echo around the clearing. Hearing it, he looked from Kalima and around him to the trees behind him. He looked over the area of where he stepped out into the clearing, and when he did that, the howling stopped. With it, he turned back to Kenny, but Kenny was now the only one there. Kalima was gone, and with him gone, he sighed. He never saw him leave. He never saw him move. He was just gone, and with him, a large part of him now felt missing. He didn’t know what to think about any of this. “Where did he go?”
Kenny smiled. “He has left this place, and so will you.” He smiled. “It is not your time, my friend. It is not his time.” He took a step back. “You have found each other through the void of time. You have both found your equals. You have both found the ones that you sought to find.” He turned and walked back to the tree line.
Jimmy couldn’t believe what he heard, and couldn’t for the life him understand why Kenny was leaving him now. “Where are you going?” He stepped forwards. He wanted to run after him. He wanted to follow him. It just felt like the instinct of being afraid. He didn‘t know what else he could have done. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” He nearly screamed.
Kenny stopped by a large tree, the first one in front of him, and turned back around and faced him again. “You are what you are. Live, and be you.”
Jimmy watched Kenny vanish almost like he was nothing more than smoke itself. He left him so fast. Now alone, he didn’t know what to think or what to feel. He had nothing. He felt totally confused. He just stood there, looking to the trees. He just stood there, watching where Kenny stood only moments before it, and could do nothing but sigh. He could do nothing but wonder. In fact, he felt like crying. He felt sad. He felt suddenly cold. He shivered some, feeling that coolness engulf him. In fact, he could almost feel it beneath him. He felt almost like he was now lying down on something that felt hard. It felt solid. He was lying down on his back and could see a bright white light above him. He closed his eyes because of the brightness.
38
Horace Martin never saw a gunshot victim before, so he couldn’t wait to see this one. For his entire life as being a funeral director of this small quaint little town, such things never seemed to happen to him. When he was given the two bodies from the barn, just outside of town, he just knew that he had to look at him. He was so used to dealing with heart attacks and old age. He was so used to seeing the occasional accident, or missing limbs. He was used to such things, but not this. With it, he had to see what it looked like. He had to see what it does.
He opened the body bag on the long morgue table with the single zipper that ran along the top of the bag. With it unzipped, he pulled it open and revealed a young looking twenty-something man that looked pale, almost making him look like a bright white sheet. His face looked bad, almost covered with every bruise imaginable. Several gashes were all over his face. His chest looked likewise covered with all types of wounds. Some looked like claw marks. Some looked like simple bruises. One mark, by the left shoulder looked like a bite mark made by an extremely large dog. On the other shoulder, was what looked like a deep burn. He couldn’t believe how much damage this young man suffered. This wasn’t just a gunshot victim. It couldn’t be. This looked like more than that. This looked awful. This felt exciting beyond belief.
“Well, well, well.” He looked from the bite mark on the shoulder, and down to the young man’s chest. He looked between his two breast muscles and there he found it. A single bullet wound right in the center of the chest. It looks so neat. It looks so clean. It almost looks like a mosquito bite. How strange is that? It looked simple. In some ways, he thought it should look different—more grotesque—anything more than what it did actually look like.
“You are a mess, aren’t you my friend?” He looked back up to the young man’s face. His black hair stood out strongly against his pale white skin. His eyes were closed. He looked so peaceful. He didn’t look like he was dead at all. “Fascinating?” He looked back to the neck, and instantly, and quite surprisingly, he gasped. The wound that he could have sworn was there only seconds ago, the bite mark, was gone. Blood was still there, but the teeth marks weren’t. He looked back to the young man’s face, and likewise, all of the scratches that had been there just a few moments ago, were missing. He couldn’t believe what he saw. It couldn’t be real. He must have been mistaken. He must have seen something that wasn’t there. He looked back to the man’s chest as his heart now raced. His mind flared into a thousand different directions. He felt baffled. He felt awestruck. He felt so confused.
The chest was there, but there was also something else. A single, golden bullet was lying in between the man’s muscles. He looked at it, and with shaking hands, he picked it up between his fingers. He brought the bullet closer to his face, and realizing what it was, he gasped again. “What the hell?” He looked from the bullet and back to the chest.
The bullet hole that he could have sworn was there, not moments ago, was gone. His skin looked neat. It looked complete. Even the bruises that once covered him were now gone.
“Fuck me?” He had to turn around. He had to step away. His legs felt weak. His mind grew numb. If he stayed there, he felt sure that he was going to pass out. He walked to the counter at the head of the table, and once there, took the counter top solidly with both hands down to it. He had to use it to keep standing. He needed the support.
In all of his twenty years of dealing with the dead, he had never seen wounds do what he saw them now doing. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t understand it. He had to take a deep breath. He had to gather his thoughts. He had to try to breathe.
39
Jimmy opened his eyes. He looked up, seeing a white tiled ceiling and a bright white light just above his face. He could tell that he was lying down. The surface beneath him felt cold and hard. It had to be metal. It had to be flat, and with it, it made him feel a tremendous cold surrounding him. He felt it nearly permeate through his skin. He felt it flow through his naked body. He turned his head and looked to his right. He could see a wall there, and could see a single door that looked to be just to the right of the wall. He looked to his left and there, he could see what looked like a man wearing a long white coat with his back towards him. He stood next to a long counter that ran along the wall towards the top of his head. He could tell that the man had his head down. He had both hands to the top of the counter in front of him. He could feel his heart beat slowly. He could even see the man shake his head. With it all, he sat up.
He brought his legs to the side of the table. Feeling them dangle, he could tell that he was high up off the floor. He looked to his right, towards where his feet just were, and noticed a long gray wall, which had what looked like little individual square doors built into the wall itself. They looked like vaults of some kind. They looked like cupboards. They looked eerie resting there within the wall itself.
He looked back to the man with the white coat. “Where am I?” The thought of being in the trees with Kenny seemed gone. This was not the same place. He was somewhere else, and seeing this place, it made him feel even worse. It felt too cold here. None of it felt right to hi
m in any way he could imagine it.
The man lifted his head. His graying dark brown hair sparkled in the surrounding white color of the room. He turned around slowly.
Jimmy could see his eyes as he turned. They looked so large. They made him look strange, almost unnatural. He also looked confused.
He looked surprised. His heart began to pound in his chest. He could feel his lungs trying to gasp for air. It all told him that the man felt scared. He felt terrified. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He couldn’t believe that he had to turn around at all.
“Did you hear me?” Jimmy blinked. He brought his right hand to his face, and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. He looked down to his knees, and could see that he wasn’t only sitting on some type of table, but he was also sitting on some sort of a bag too. The bag had a gray, almost black color to it. He could feel a zipper just under both of his thighs. Feeling that, he looked back up to the man, and noticed that he wasn’t answering him. He could feel the man’s heart pounding faster in his chest. His lungs were continuing to gasp for any air they could get. His fear was also growing, and the shock he felt grew with it.
This all made Jimmy have to turn and look back to the gray wall with the small square doors. Seeing them again, and thinking, it dawned on him that they had to freezers. He looked back to the gray and black bag that he was sitting on, and it dawned on him that it had to be a body bag. He then looked back to the man with the white coat, and couldn’t believe it, but knew that he had to be some kind of a doctor, maybe even a mortician or even a coroner of some kind. Realizing everything within only a second, he gasped. I’m in a fucking morgue!
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the man by the counter lost his legs and fell until he hit the floor hard with a thud.
For a brief moment, Jimmy felt the man’s mind go blank. He felt the man’s heart beat rapidly and then slow to an almost normal rhythm. He could hear all of the air leave his lungs just as fast, but could do nothing but watch him fall. He then looked back to his own knees. “I’m in a fucking morgue.” He looked back to his hands. Dried blood was on both of them. He looked back from his hands and down to his chest, and noticed blood there as well. Some of it even looked moist. He looked back to the counter where the man had been standing, and could see on top of it something that looked like knives. He could see something that looked eerily like a saw of some type next to them. He looked back to the man that was now unconscious on the floor, lying on his left side, and with it, he gasped again. “He thought I was dead.” That made sense. He couldn’t believe it, but it did. That explains him passing out like that too. With it all, he took a deep harsh breath.
He stood up, and jumped off the table. Instantly, the floor felt cold. It felt like ice. He looked back to the table that he woke up on and could see the body bag clearly. Seeing that it was just that, he felt weak. It made him feel almost lightheaded as he turned and looked around the rest of the room. I have to get the fuck out of here. Feeling his heart panic, he turned to the door that he saw behind him before, went to it, and opened it up quietly. He looked through it, and found a hallway that stretched out from where he was to what looked like a single set of stairs that went up to the floor above him. Seeing that, he realized that he had to be in a basement. As he thought about it more, it made even more sense. Morgues are normally kept in basements right. Again, it answered everything he saw, if not more. Either way, he saw enough.
He left the room, headed to the stairs, and went up them quietly.
When he reached the top step, he found another door there, so he opened it up and just as quietly, peered around it.
No one was there. Everything looked quiet. Everything felt still.
He left the door and came into an area that looked like some kind of a living room. A single sofa sat along the far wall. He looked around and saw what looked like an overcoat hanging over the arm of the sofa, so he grabbed it quickly, put it on just as fast, and spun around the room.
The need to get out of there felt overwhelming, that so much so, he had to answer that need. He had to run. He had to get out of there as fast as he could go. It was no longer an option, so he did just that, and left outside and never looked back.
40
It was dark again when Rachel finally left the New York State Police barracks in little town of Old Forge, and made it back to her hotel. It had been such a long day. She hadn’t slept for hours. Her mind hadn’t stopped thinking for what felt like days. She couldn’t get Jimmy off her mind. She couldn’t get her heart to keep going knowing that he was gone. Every part of her seemed to ache. Every part of her felt almost numb. It felt consuming. It all felt beyond horrible. It all felt beyond terrifying. She couldn’t stop the feelings. She couldn’t make them end.
After telling the police everything she knew about what happened the night before, she finally felt glad to have the chance to leave. She told them about Gary, and that he thought he was hunting werewolves. He killed many people thinking that’s what they were. The police did have several murders that went unexplained up until now. They even had a name for the suspect, the Silver Bullet Killer. They knew about several people being shot to death with silver bullets, and after hearing the tale she told them, everything made sense. With it, they concluded that Gary must have been insane. He probably would have kept on killing if it wasn’t for his last victim, Jimmy Walls, who killed him before he had the chance to kill him. Unfortunately, for Mister Walls, he too was shot just after he did it. The police took her story down word for word. They even closed the case. They had no other choice not to believe her.
Of course, it was all a lie. Well almost all of it was any way. She of course left out the small fact that everything she told them was in fact real. With it, how could she tell them the truth? How could she give in to doing that? She couldn’t. With Jimmy gone, there was no longer a need to tell anyone what he was. It would dishonor him in a way. She had nothing left to give him.
After she finished with telling her tale, she left. She had to get a new hotel. She couldn’t go back to the other place, being that it was now a crime scene, and with it being that, the police helped her find another place. This one was right in town, and once there, she settled down in it alone. Feeling it, she agreed with what she found. She needed the time to think about everything that happened. She had to plan what to do next. She had to figure out how to make it back home to Redford Forge. She had to figure out how she was going to be able to move on without him. There was so much to do. She had no idea of how, or where, to start.
She went straight into the room and closed the door behind her. That’s when she truly had everything hit her all at once. Her new motel room seemed to be overly quiet. It also felt subdued. She figured that nothing was ever going to feel right again, now with him gone from her life—now with him missing from it. In fact, she now felt more alone than she ever felt before.
She walked to the bed with a heavy weight in her legs. She had to force them to move. She reached the bed and sat down with an equally heavy weight. Sitting there, she finally cried. She couldn’t help herself. She had to let it out, and so she did. Until a knock coming from the door forced her to stop.
Begrudgingly, she stood up, walked to the door, and opened it, softly.
Sasha smiled back to her at the open door.
“Sasha?” Rachel nodded.
“Hi Rachel.”
“Where’d you go?” Rachel bowed her head as she wiped the tears from her eyes. When she felt sure that her faced looked dry again, she lifted her head back up. “The police told me they never heard of you when I asked about you. They didn’t find anyone at the other motel. I was worried.” She tried to keep strong. She did her best. She was always good at doing it too. After everything she went through, she doubted that she ever would fail at it again.
“I’m okay.” Sasha nodded. “May we come in?” She stood back some from the doorway, and Brandon stepped to where Rachel could see him.
She
looked at him and nodded again. She couldn’t find anything else to say, so she didn’t say anything, and instead, she simply stepped aside and let both of them come into the room and join her.
Brandon came in first. After what happened with Jimmy, he left Rachel with him, and left. He knew he couldn’t be there when the police showed up. That would cause too many questions that he didn’t have any answers for. It would cause too many problems that he was in no mood to try to solve them. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but he had no other choice. Now that she was alone again, he had to see her. When he found Sasha, they had to come there together.
Rachel closed the door to her room. “I’m happy to see that you’re both all right.” She came to the back of both of them. “I’ve been worried that something might have happened to you.”
Both turned to her at the same time. Sasha winced some holding her left side, and Rachel noticed Brandon walking with a slight limp.
“How’s the wound?” She looked to Sasha first.
Sasha smiled. “It’s healing.” The smiled vanished from her face fast. “It’ll heal completely before the full moon again.” Jimmy streamed through her thoughts. The idea of hunting alone again made her hurt more than the hole in her side ever could.
Rachel nodded, seeing her face turn cold.
“We had to make sure that you were going to be all right before we left. We didn’t want to leave before we knew you were.” Sasha could easily feel the hurt inside her human friend. In fact, she felt the same way. Kalima was dead. He was gone. The last of the originals was off this world forever, and that alone made her sad, but the fact that she also lost her best friend hurt more than that.
Rachel wiped her face again with the palms of her hands. She sniffled some, trying to suck the tears down her throat. It worked. She was always good at not showing her feelings to anyone, and even now, even with everything that happened, she didn’t intend to stop that practice now. Besides, she had to do it. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t allow it. She had to keep her senses about her. “I’ll be all right.” She nodded, bringing both of her arms back down to her sides. She didn’t want to talk anymore about it, so she changed the subject. She was also very good at doing that too, when she needed to do it the most. “Where have you guys been?” She tried to smile. She pulled it off some, but not by a lot.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 80
