by Terry Yates
“Stay off the line for a minute!” he had barked in succession at both of the soldiers. “Pull up!” he yelled into the line again, trying to keep his eye on the werewolf that was pounding in the roof. “Pull up!”
“Col. Potts?!” came the sheriff’s voice, sounding amazingly calm.
“Pull up! I’m in the truck ahead of you! “You’re too far away and I can’t see well enough! Get closer!”
Mary Sue pressed down on the accelerator as the thing continued to pound the roof. Rex was almost in the floorboard and Denny, having pulled the still unconscious Rhonda Weaver down onto the back floorboard, was lying as flat as he could on the back seat.
Mary Sue continued to press the accelerator, and was gaining on the Army truck. She could now see Col. Potts standing in the back of the truck, waiving her forward. She could hear the werewolf growling and panting. One or two more of those blows and they’ve had it. This time, she floored the accelerator. She was almost on top of the truck, when she saw Potts bend down and place something on the floor of the bed, her guess the radio. He stayed bent down and continued to wave her forward.
The police cruiser was at fifteen feet and closing the gap quickly. Potts could see the werewolf better now. The beast had destroyed the police lights long ago. What was holding the thing on?” he wondered. Even the worst driver could shake something from their roof…unless, of course…it has huge claws. Ah…that was it. He could see that the werewolf was bending down and only using its right claw/hand, which meant that it was holding on with its left. When the cruiser was no more than ten away, Potts stood up straight, aimed his gun into the air, and fired a shot.
The police cruiser swerved for a moment, but quickly righted itself. The ‘45’ was loud and probably spooked her. His plan had worked though, because he saw those yellow eyes suddenly looking only at him. It had been looking back and forth from the cruiser to Potts, ever since he had begun to shoot at it, but now it saw that the little two-legger wanted to play hardball, and it stopped beating on the roof. It wanted the feast inside, but it was having its first feelings of bloodlust and wanted this feisty little creature.
The car was no more than five feet away, when Potts kicked down the tailgate, while never taking his eyes off of the werewolf, which stood with its claws out at both sides. Potts dropped to one knee, his knee landing on the tailgate. He raised his gun to his eye and fired. The shot hit the beast in the lower abdomen, causing it to fall backwards a little, but not much. Sumbitch had sharp toenails, Potts thought to himself.
Still in crouch mode, Potts checked his clip. One bullet…and there was one in the chamber…that’s two. He felt the outside of both front pockets. Nothing. He sure wished he’d jumped into the back of one of the weapons trucks instead of the food truck, but time hadn’t been on his side at the time. He looked back up at the werewolf. It was still waiting for him. He aimed at the werewolf again and fired. The beast quickly ducked down and dodged left. The bullet missed him. It knew what was coming and when. These bastards are smart right off of the bat. One left. Still on his knee, he bent down. He could now see the lady sheriff who had a look a sheer concentration on her face. She DID look like the whore in Risky Business. He waived her forward again, this time keeping an eye on the werewolf, who was now intrigued with the brave little two-legger.
When Potts saw that the car was within three feet, he figured that was enough. He didn’t want the werewolf jumping at him. He quickly looked down at the vehicle. It was a good two and a half or three-foot drop. Potts stood up and faced the werewolf, who still stood on the roof of the car. Good, you ballsy bastard, Potts thought, as he checked his gun.
Potts stood up straight and stared at the creature, who was now no more than six or seven feet away. He could now see the half dozen bullet holes he’d put in it. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that he saw wisps of smoke blowing out into the darkness. Good grouping. He guessed he’d been too far away for the silver bullets to have caused too much damage. Well…let’s see what he could do now.
He pointed the gun down, turned on the laser, then aimed it at the werewolf’s eyes. It screamed in rage as the laser hit it in the eye. As soon as it put its hands/claws to its face, Potts dropped down on top off the tailgate, and onto the car. With the laser aimed at its face, Potts shot in midair, now no more than a couple of feet from it. He missed its face, hitting it in the throat instead.
The werewolf screamed as the bullet hit its mark. Potts had tried to land with one foot in front of the other for better balance when he landed on the hood of the cruiser, but he hadn’t really expected it to work...and it didn’t. As soon as he landed on the hood of the police car, he shot forward, landing halfway between the roof and the windshield, his gun falling from his hand, and sliding off of the car. He grabbed at the metal brace that the emergency lights and the siren were attached to. It was only hanging on by a bolt, the rest still dangling off of the driver’s side. He tried to pull himself up, because he knew that the sheriff would be having trouble seeing where she is going, what with his upper body on the roof and his lower body, crotch included, swinging back and forth on the windshield, making him indeed a traffic hazard.
When he pulled himself up, he had been surprised to see that the werewolf was not gone. A ‘45’ at three feet had some blast. Its foot had gone through the now huge hole in the roof and gotten stuck, causing it to hang down from the back of the car. It was struggling to raise its head. Potts could see the hole in its throat, and…if he wasn’t mistaken, he could see clear through it. The thing breathed heavily as it looked at Potts. Even so close to death, the beast had a murderous look in its eye.
Potts pulled himself up on the brace with his right hand, and put his hand through the hole with his left. As he pulled himself toward the hole, he could feel the thing’s foot against his skin. He pulled himself completely up to the hole, took a breath and tried to dislodge its foot, but it was wedge in there pretty good. He looked back up at the werewolf, who was still trying to lift its body.
“Hand me a gun!” he yelled down the hole.
He’d hardly gotten the words out of his mouth, when the sheriff’s Glock came through the opening, butt first. He hugged the brace hard with his right hand, hoping that the last bolt held out. With the gun in his left hand, he moved it up to the brace, and crossed his left arm over his right. He had his complete weight on the brace now and he felt the bolt creak. He quickly changed the gun from his left hand to his right, and let his right arm go, releasing a lot of the weight off of the brace. He raised the pistol. The werewolf looked groggier now, but it still tried to sit up and get at Potts. It attempted to slash at him, but it didn’t have the strength to reach him. Potts reached out with his right arm and aimed at the werewolf’s chest, the barrel of the gun no more than two-and-a-half feet away from the creature. Potts pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into the beast’s chest, causing its body to go into convulsions. It tried to roar, but had no more vocal chords, and nothing but hissing air emanated from the hole in its neck, along with larger billowing clouds of smoke. That’s doing the trick, he thought, as he watched the werewolf try to raise its head again. Damn, these things were tough. Railing now, the werewolf managed to lift its head one last time. It weakly clawed at Potts one more time, before he fired the gun again, the bullet entering the creature’s forehead, and exiting out the back of its head. He could see the yellow glow disappearing from the werewolf’s eyes as its head rolled to the side away from Potts. He fired three more times at the things neck and jaw, almost blasting its face completely apart.
Potts grabbed at the hole with his left hand and pulled himself toward it, the dead creature’s foot still lodged in it. He pulled his face next to it, so he could yell down the hole, but before he could open his mouth, he saw that the hair on the thing’s leg was rapidly disappearing and the leg seemed to be getting smaller, thinner. The hair disappeared, leaving no hair on the leg’s skin, telling Potts that the leg belonged to a female. He reached int
o the hole, and easily dislodged the foot now that it was human again. He pulled it out by its ankle and saw that the foot was small with freshly painted pink toenails. The bottom of the foot was exceptionally smooth, telling him that it was probably a young woman or girl. He did want to look any further behind him. He had blasted the face pretty good and for once in his life as a soldier, he didn’t want to see the damage. He sighed, and then let go of the ankle. He heard the body roll off of the back of the car and into the highway.
“Okay!” Potts yelled down into the hole. “You can slow down now!”
He heard the tires screeching and before he knew it, the car was slowing down at a high rate of speed. He let the glock fall from his left hand, so that he could grab hold of the opening. He continued to hug the brace with his right arm. He heard a muffled “Shit!” as the gun clattered down the windshield, onto the hood, and out into the highway somewhere. She had slammed on the brakes too hard. Potts could feel that she was slowing down too fast when he felt the kinetic energy kick in. He had to let go of the hole in the roof, because the metal began to cut him, leaving him hanging on to the brace with his right arm. The brace would’ve been hard enough to hang onto had it not been hanging on by a single bolt, but with the car slowing down at a high rate of speed, he knew that the brace wouldn’t last very long…and it didn’t. Just as the car was coming to a stop, the brace broke, sending Potts and the brace rolling down over the hood of the car and onto the dark highway, where he rolled at least another eight times, finally coming to a stop in the middle of the road, staring up at the night sky.
“Are you all right, Colonel?” came a voice above him.
Pain shot through Potts’ body. One elbow and one knee gave him considerable discomfort. He looked to his left to see three silhouettes standing together, above him.
“I said…slow down…” Potts gasped, trying to catch his breath. “…not slam on the brakes!”
“Sorry.” Replied one of the silhouettes.
The three silhouettes reached down and helped Potts to his feet. He rubbed his elbow, and then his knee. His whole body felt skinned up. He could also feel his bandage becoming unwound.
“Are you okay, Colonel?” Mary Sue asked, her hands on his shoulders.
“I’m fine,” he answered, pulling away. “Who are you?” he asked Rex who stood back with Denny.
“My name’s Rex Murphy,” Rex answered tersely, feeling that Potts was being rude.
“Nice shot back there at the hospital, Rex Murphy,” Potts told him limping forward. “Both of you.”
“Thanks,” Both Mary Sue and Rex replied.
Shit, Mary Sue thought to herself. They had both saved his ass back at the hospital, and here they were thanking him.
“And who are you?” Potts asked, limping up to Denny.
“I’m Denny Lusk,” the boy answered, looking at Potts as if he were Superman. Denny was glad that other than his long black, dyed hair, and the faded black nail polish on his fingers, he didn’t look like a Goth at that moment.
Potts limped back and forth for a moment, trying to shake it off, but rolling down the highway when you’re pushing fifty, takes a toll.
Mary Sue apologized several times to Potts about slamming on the brakes, but he’d wave her off, each time limping away, while holding his elbow. As the three watched him, they couldn’t tell if he was cursing under his breath, or just grunting.
“I take it that was my gun falling off the car?” Mary Sue asked, patting her holster.
Potts had his back turned to them. He was stooped slightly, his left hand still rubbing his right elbow.
“Yeah…I wasn’t expecting you to stop so quickly.”
“Sorry.”
“Lost my ‘45’, too. Had it for almost twenty years.” Potts wanted to chuckle after all the shit he’d given Kyler for losing a gun on the island, and here he was, losing two in the span of less than two minutes.
“What do we do now, Colonel?”
Before Potts could answer, they heard a vehicle coming down the road.
“My guess…that’s Cpl. Williams coming back to pick me up,” he answered, watching as two sets of truck lights rounded the bend.
CHAPTER 56
The whine and grinding of the truck gave off a drone that would normally have put Kyler to sleep, especially with his head leaning against the window, but at that moment, he couldn’t have been wider-awake. Neither he nor FranAnne had spoken since they had started back down the long dark highway. It was pitch black, except for the green glow coming from the dashboard lights.
“I tried to ditch it…honest I did,” FranAnne said, finally breaking the silence. “It was just too fast and strong. You should’ve seen the thing moving!”
“We saw how fast those things could run,” Kyler answered, still leaning against the door.
FranAnne rolled down her window, because the dashboard light reflections were looking like big, yellow eyes coming at her. The night breeze felt nice and cool against her face. She removed her cap and laid it in her lap. The breeze was now blowing through her hair, which had grown a little over the months. To her knowledge, there hadn’t been a stylist in the refugee camp, although it was getting so large, someone was bound to open a boutique in their tent. What did she need a stylist for? Just give me the usual dyke cut…buzz it down to the scalp. Might as well…she never got any action anyway. Even in the gay world, everyone just wanted to be friends with her.
“Was that you shooting the gun back there?” she asked Kyler, trying to take her mind off of her celibacy.
“How could you tell?”
“Because no one else would shoot a gun inside an enclosed space, but you.”
“And Dr. Proudfoot,” he answered back softly.
“Who?”
“Oh…nothing. I’m thinking I might’ve shot Dustin when I shot through the roof.”
“Does it really matter?” FranAnne asked after a few moments of awkward silence.
“What do you mean…does it really matter?” Kyler asked, looking at her now.
“What I mean IS…” she began, looking back at him now. “We both know he was dead the moment that thing pulled him out of the truck. If you did hit him and killed him, you saved him from a world of pain…or worse. And I gotta tell ya’. Doc…Richard…if one of those things ever picks me up and starts to take a chomp out of me, feel free to blow me in half.”
“That’s the same thing Sam said,” Kyler answered, “except he referred to them as those “’Hairy fuckers’”.
The two watched the road in silence again. As they were rounding a curve in the old highway, Kyler found himself looking out the window.
“FranAnne…” he said almost inquisitively, holding out the ‘Anne”.
CHAPTER 57
Williams’ truck had indeed been the first to round the bend in the highway. The second had been driven by Pvt. Jordan, the young red-head, who was driving the truck that was carrying most of the group’s gear…sleeping bags, clothes, etc. The tents were in one of the other trucks. Several minutes after Jordan arrived, Jefferson drove up in one of the weapons trucks. He’d had a hard time turning around.
Potts had them turn off their engines, including Mary Sue, who hadn’t wanted to. She’d had a sneaking suspicion that it might not start again, but she acquiesced still feeling guilty for knocking him off of the car.
The group stood in the middle of the highway. The moon and stars lit up the sky. There seemed to be a falling star every thirty seconds. No one but Jefferson stood amazed. Mary Sue, Rex, Denny, and Rhonda, the locals, saw this every night. Jordan was a southern boy, Williams was from the Midwest, and Potts came from Nebraska…but having grown up in New York City, Harlem…to be exact…then Brooklyn, he’d been mostly privy to just seeing tall buildings for most of his life. He hadn’t really seen that many stars until Basic Training when they would sleep outside, but even then, it wasn’t as beautiful as it was at that moment.
Everyone remained silent whi
le Potts kept his ear cocked toward Harmonville.
“I don’t hear anything,” he finally said. “How far away from your town are we?” he asked Mary Sue.
“About eight or ten miles,” Mary Sue replied quickly. “We’re on Old Highway 4. If you stay on it, you go up the back way to Atoka.” She could feel herself blushing in the darkness with Rex’ standing right next to her. She wondered if he was thinking of last night, too.
Seeing that they were in the middle of a mountain, Potts took one of the radios, and walked a few feet away from the group.
“Come in!” he snapped into the radio. Immediately, Mary Sue’s, Jordan’s, and Jefferson’s radios squelched loudly, causing everyone to cover their ears in pain. Potts noticed that it seemed to be extremely painful for Rhonda Weaver, who was standing on her own, but swooning. Denny moved over next to her just in case she began to feel weak.
“Sorry,” they all muttered sheepishly, turning down their radios, and avoiding eye-contact with the annoyed Potts, as he put the radio back up to his mouth.
Potts hadn’t been able to reach anyone but a ham radio operator, who wouldn’t get off of the airwaves until Potts had threatened to feed him his face through his ass. He knew that most of the trucks had gone left out of the hospital parking lot, as did most of the traffic, but several had gone right, including the one he’d seen Kyler chasing. The lady sheriff told him the chances of safety were better going in the direction that they were going. This area was more populated. All there was in the other direction was woods, pastures, and mountains.
Potts rubbed his sore elbow as stared down the long, lonesome, dark highway that headed back toward Harmonville. He’d really screwed this up. Take care of it, they’d ordered him, and he failed. He’d screwed up on the island and he screwed up on land.
There was no howling from werewolves, or even dogs barking maniacally when a strange animal was around. There was nothing. Granted, according to the sheriff, they were a good eight or ten miles from Harmonville. Even though sound carried a long way in the country, they were probably too far away to hear any real ruckus. But Harmonville itself could have those things loose all over the place…they were just too far away to hear it. Surely, someone got through to the outside. It hadn’t really bothered him that the cell phone world had gone almost tits up since he’d returned from the island, but right now, he was missing the Information Highway, where you couldn’t fart without it being on YouTube thirty seconds later. Now you were lucky to get anything but a news feed, which he liked better anyway, but in this situation, he sure hoped someone in town got a message out. Surely some of the locals that just came down this highway are already babbling this tale to someone. Hell, the soldiers that got out would eventually tell someone, after which the new Army trucks and tanks would come rolling down this road.
