by Terry Yates
Potts stood there holding his side. He knew from experience that he had several broken ribs…at least two on each side of his ribcage, and possibly another couple of cracked ones. He’d hit the rock head, on and then had Kyler’s body slam him from the back. He’d blacked out for a moment, but had come to when he’d heard the sound of gunfire. He’d heard two guns firing, so his first impulse had been to reach back to check if his pistol was still there. It wasn’t.
When he’d gotten to his feet, he saw that the werewolf, all nine feet of the sumbitch, was between him and Kyler. He reached down to his side and pulled the silver-tipped hatchet from its belt. The last time he had thrown the hatchet at the werewolf, he had put too much spin on it, so this time he would compensate by not throwing it as hard as he had the first time. When he reared back his arm, he didn’t pull it as far back as he had before. When he released it this time, it spun end-over-end, again headed for the werewolf’s back. If he gauged it right, the hatchet should land between its fifth and sixth vertebrae. The spinning hatchet seemed to take forever to reach the beast, the whirring noise loud as it flew through the air. Finally, it connected with the thing’s back, just between the fifth and sixth vertebrae…and then bounced off again.
“Sonofagodamnfuckinbitch!” he screamed after his second failed attempt.
This time though, the werewolf didn’t turn around, but stayed focused on Kyler. Seething with fury, Potts began to sprint toward the creature. Before he reached it, the thing had sat down on Kyler’s chest and looked like it was about to have himself a piece of what werewolves probably thought of as beef jerky or taffy. The hatchet was lying just behind it. He pulled to a stop, reached down, and then picked up the hatchet. He stood just behind the creature where it couldn’t see him, gripped the hatchet with both hands, raised it high over his head, and then brought it down and buried it inside the werewolf’s skull. Silver smoke began to pour out of its head like steam from a broken steam pipe. The thing got off of Kyler and began to come after him, but Kyler put a couple into its head, and now it was after the doctor again.
Potts trained his one eye on the hatchet. Where was a good lightning bolt when you needed it? Screw it, he thought. Let’s end this here and now. As the werewolf was about to take another swing at Kyler, Potts took three quick steps backward, and then took a three-step leap as fast as he could toward the monster’s back. Keeping his eye on the hatchet, he reached out, put both hands around the handle, and then pulled.
The beast screamed and grabbed the back of its head, which was almost completely engulfed in the silver smoke. As it spun around, Potts swung the blade upwards, just missing the thing’s crotch, but connecting with its stomach. The werewolf howled and took a swing at Potts with its huge claws, but the colonel knew it was coming, so he dropped into what could only be described as ‘Drop-Kick mode’. His body was completely horizontal as he fell under the creature’s swing. Just before he hit the ground, Potts, still horizontal, drew up both legs at the same time, then shot his right one out, while keeping the other drawn up. Kyler heard the monster’s femur crack as Potts’ foot made contact with it. The werewolf crumpled to one knee/leg, as Potts rolled away, making sure to get out of reach of the hairy-ass once he hit the ground.
Potts was up on his feet, hatchet in hand again. As the thing reached for him, he swung the blade and severed the thing’s left arm/foreleg. As it instinctively reached for its appendage, Kyler fired two more shots into the back of its head, causing it to fall forward, balancing itself with its remaining arm/foreleg and its one good back leg.
The creature growled through the smoke as it tried to fan it away. While the werewolf literally gave Kyler the ‘evil-eye’, Potts walked up behind it, and once again raised the hatchet over his head with both hands.
Both of them were taken by surprise by what the werewolf did next. Instead of lunging after Kyler, it leapt backwards into Potts who hadn’t been expecting it. The creature crashed into Potts, while picking him up at the same time and moving him backwards. Kyler tried to keep up with them as the two flew through the air before both hitting the ground hard. The two of them began to roll away from Kyler, intertwined in each other’s arms. Kyler wanted to shoot the thing, but the smoke was so thick that he was having trouble distinguishing one from the other. The only thing that he could distinguish clearly was the silver-tipped hatchet that Potts’ arm was still connected to. The two continued to roll around in the smoke, the hatchet coming down again and again, and even more smoke engulfing the enemies, until all one could see was an ever-growing billowy cloud of silver.
Kyler stood well away from the ball of smoke. Because of the storm, he couldn’t hear any sounds at all coming from the two protagonists…there was only the cloud. There were two silhouettes in the fog, but only one was moving. The rain began to fall harder now and the wind had kicked up again. He watched as the cloud slowly dissolved. When all was clear, he could finally see that Potts was lying on top of the werewolf. Potts was moving..the werewolf wasn’t. The colonel rolled off of the beast, stopping at Kyler’s feet. He lay on his side in the fetal position, holding his hand to his chest. The handkerchief had fallen from his face, exposing the mauled side.
Kyler wasn’t sure what to do. He looked at the body of the animal. It hadn’t changed back yet, but he’d seen it take some longer than others. He just stood there, a gun in each hand, and stared down at the colonel, who was now groaning and hissing in pain. Kyler watched as Potts raised his head, and then slowly pulled his arm out from under his body.
The doctor didn’t look at the arm the way a doctor would look at a patient’s, but like a superstitious shaman who prescribed leeches and monkey pee for constipation. Potts’s left hand was almost mangled beyond recognition…and repair. The index and middle fingers were missing, and the thumb was only hanging on by a single tendon. Kyler followed the line of damage that ended just above the wrist. He hadn’t been able to tell from looking at the hand, but once he saw the tearing and the shredding of the skin, and the huge indentions that almost made a dotted line along his wrist. They were bite marks. His shoulders drooped as his heart sank. The man had made it all the way to the end, only to get bitten in the last moments. Kyler didn’t know what to say, so he just stared at the ground…then suddenly, he felt the pistol being yanked from his right hand. He pulled away thinking that possibly the werewolf had not been dead after all, but instead, he was met with a site that he would not soon forget. Potts was now halfway on his side, and halfway on his back, his right hand holding the revolver to the crushed side of his face.
“No!” screamed Kyler, regaining his senses and holding both arms down toward Potts.
The doctor wasn’t quick enough, for Potts pulled the trigger before he knew that it was even happening. Kyler stood there frozen as the chamber clicked empty…as did the subsequent chambers as Potts continued to pull the trigger, grunting and cussing the whole time.
“Goddammit!” he snarled, still pulling the trigger.
Kyler watched him toss the gun back over his shoulder. As he was following the flight of the gun, Potts suddenly reached up toward Kyler in an attempt to get the other gun. The doctor was too quick though and instinctively jumped back about three feet.
“Come on, Kyler…let me have the gun!” Potts grunted, gritting his teeth.
“No!”
“Give me the gun!”
“No! I took an oath!”
“Fuck you and your oath! Give me the groaned gun!”
Potts looked almost helpless as he struggled to reach up for the gun. The half of his face that wasn’t crushed flat gave him a pleading look.
“Let me have the gun, Kyler…” he groaned. “You know what’s gonna happen!”
“I can’t…I…”
“Let me have it, Kyler. I don’t want to become one of those things.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Shit!” Potts exclaimed. “Then do it yourself!”
“What?!”
; “Shoot me!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“Do I look like I’m kiddin’, Numbnuts?”
“Colonel!”
“Kyler…please!”
Lightning flashed for several seconds. With the lightning flashing and rain pouring down on top of his face, Potts looked like the Frankenstein Monster, albeit a five-foot-seven-inch Frankenstein Monster.
“Do it!” he screamed again at Kyler, struggling to reach the gun, but having no luck, because the shock was wearing off and the pain was setting in, which was zapping him of his strength. “Please, Kyler,” he whispered. “Shoot me.”
Had all of his faculties been in working order, he would’ve repeatedly refused Potts’ request, but exhaustion and lack of sleep brought his Give-a-Damn level way down. He didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry or just fall down into the wet grass and mud and go to sleep. He supposed the old adage was true. ‘There’s a fine line between genius and insanity’, because at that moment, he wasn’t sure which group he belonged to.
“I can’t become one of those things! I can’t!” Potts was trying to rise to his feet, but kept falling back down on his face. Kyler supposed Potts was trying to stand up and go throw himself off of the cliff.
Seeing the man lying facedown in the mud made up the doctor’s mind for him. He had taken an oath to always try to save lives and to never take one, but these circumstances were different. No one had mentioned werewolves or those bitten by werewolves when he took it.
“All right, I’ll do it,” he said over the storm.
Potts, still on his stomach, raised his head up, his normally white, spiked hair covered in mud. He stared up at Kyler making sure that he’d heard him right.
“You’ll do it?”
Kyler paused for a moment, and then slowly nodded his head. He would let the soldier die as one.
“Thanks,” Potts, forcing a smile, then rolling over onto his back.
Kyler stepped up, the pistol at his side. Potts was staring at the sky, his eye seemingly scanning it from horizon to horizon one last time. A smile came across his half face as if he was reliving his greatest memory…probably some sort of battle somewhere. After a moment, the half-smile slowly disappeared, and the blue eye met his gaze. He took a deep breath and then slowly nodded his head. The doctor understood the signal, nodded back, and smiled down at him before raising the gun. He placed the barrel about six inches from Potts’ forehead, and then pulled the hammer back. As he placed his finger on the trigger, he turned his head away. There was no way he could watch a bullet enter Potts’ forehead.
“See ya’ in Hell, Doc,” he heard Potts say just as he pulled the trigger.
The sound of that bullet was the loudest sound he’d thought he’d ever heard. He waited for the repeat to subside before he dropped the gun to the ground, and began to walk away. The second loudest noise he’d ever heard was forthcoming.
“You stupidgoddamndumbassshitbag!”
Kyler spun on his heels to see Potts, still on the ground, holding his ear and swatting bits of dirt that had flown in his face. When Kyler turned his head, the gun barrel moved several inches to the right and missed him, the bullet striking the ground several inches from his ear and splintering his face with hot dirt and mud.
“How could you miss me, you dumb son-of-a-bitch!” Potts screamed, reaching for the gun that Kyler had dropped.
Instinct made Kyler run for the gun. Potts was closer and quicker and snatched the gun off of the ground, then rolled back onto his side. Seeing that the doctor wasn’t slowing down, and was going to try to take the gun from him, Potts aimed the gun at him, causing Kyler to come to an immediate stop.
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” Kyler said softly, wiping his wet hair out of his eyes.
“I’ll shoot anyone who tries to stop me. I’m not gonna become on of those things.”
With this, Potts put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled again…nothing. Like he’d done with the other revolver, Potts pulled the trigger again and again, knowing that the gun was empty, but secretly hoping that a projectile was stuck in the barrel. Frustrated, he lay face down.
“You missed from six inches with the last bullet,” came the colonel’s muffled voice. “I hate you so much, Kyler. God, I hate you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” he had wanted to say, but instead, he just stood there flummoxed to the gills.
After a few seconds, Potts, holding his bad hand, began struggling to his feet, making it first to one knee, and then pushing upwards with his other leg until he was almost up. Seeing him struggle, Kyler trotted over to him and took him by the shoulders.
“Get off me!” Potts growled, pushing his shoulder into Kyler, and shaking him off.
“Where are you going?” he asked, as Potts began to walk toward the dead werewolf.
It couldn’t be suicide, because he was walking away from the cliffs. Whatever he was doing, he wasn’t going to chase him…especially after watching him retrieve the hatchet from the werewolf’s chest, whereby the beast gave one last death rattle before becoming still again. When Potts began walking back toward him, bloody ax in hand, Kyler’s first thought was that he was coming to kill him…to get even with him for destroying his face and now, becoming a werewolf. Lightning bolts continued to flash as he moved toward him, the hatchet almost swinging back and forth in a syncopated rhythm. He was just about to take off running for his life, when Potts dropped to his knees. He then placed the mangled hand on the ground.
“Get over here!” he shouted to Kyler.
“Why?” Kyler shouted in return.
“Get over here!”
Kyler was too spent to keep shouting back and forth, instead he complied with Potts’ command and walked over to him.
“What?” he asked.
“Cut it off!”
“Again…what?”
“Cut the sumbitch off…maybe we can catch the infection before it spreads! Now cut it off!”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said…no.”
“What do ya’ mean, no?”
“I mean no, Colonel,” Kyler said defeated. “I’m too tired. We’re just going to have to bandage it up and hope that the hospitals have figured out a cure by now.”
Potts reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a brown, leather wallet. He then lay on his left side, placing the ruined appendage down on the ground in front of him. He then placed the wallet in his mouth and bit down hard. He then picked up the hatchet and raised it above his head.
“Colonel! Don’t!”
Potts brought the blade down just above his wrist. A muffled, agonizing sound permeated from his mouth as he bit down on the wallet. When the blade came down on his wrist, it only cut about a third of the way through the bone. Kyler wanted to wretch as Potts struggled to pull the ax out. Once he did, he began to hack at the arm, screaming through the wallet with every chop. He kept hacking at the arm until he was about to pass out.
“Help me…Kyler…” he groaned, taking the wallet out of mouth, and lowering his head. The man was white as a sheet. “Help…”
Kyler looked around and shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what to do. He knew that whatever he did wasn’t going to be pleasant. He did his backward count from ten, and then walked up to where Potts lay and picked up the hatchet. He looked down at the mess that, first the werewolf, and now Potts, had made of his hand.
“Cut the motherfu…” Potts gasped, growing weaker. “Cut it…”
Kyler dropped to his knees, and placed the hatchet blade three inches above the wrist.
“Chop…it…”
Kyler reached down and took Potts’ wallet that was covered with saliva, blood, and bite marks, and placed it up to his mouth. The colonel weakly opened his mouth as Kyler gently placed in. As he did, the two made eye contact. Potts’ eyes were almost pleading. The doctor looked back at the injury and once again placed the blade
a few inches above the wrist. Placing his free hand on the forearm to steady it, Kyler raised the hatchet two feet above the arm. He dipped the hatchet twice, both times lining up the blade with the arm. After the second dip, he took a deep breath, raised the hatchet a little higher…and then brought the blade down.
The hatchet blade came down an inch above where he had aimed for, but the results were the same. The blade was sharp and severed the mangled hand cleanly. Kyler didn’t know how much longer he had on This Island Earth, but he knew that he would never forget the sight before him as long as he was alive. Potts screamed another muffled scream as he again bit down on the wallet, but this time his eyes rolled back into his head till nothing but white shown. He sat up into the sitting position for a moment, causing Kyler to jump. In all his travels, he had never run across a wallet-eating zombie, but figured that if such a thing existed, he knew what the king of them looked like.
Kyler stood in shock as he watched Potts hug his arm to his chest, his eyes still rolled back in their sockets. It only took a few seconds for Kyler to come to, and when he did, he ran over to Potts and dropped to his knees next to him. He had no trouble rolling Potts onto his back, which was the first sign that he was unconscious…the second was his closed eye.
Kyler removed the wallet from his mouth, and then opened his shirt. He put his ear to Potts chest and listened. The din of the storm made it too hard for him to tell if the heart was beating or not, so he checked his good wrist for a pulse…and he found it. Potts was still alive!
Kyler plopped down on his butt and began to take off his shoes, which was proving difficult. First, the laces were soaked, which was making them hard to untie, and when untied, the tennis shoe itself would didn’t want to come off…he had to push, pull, and wriggle to get his feet out. After he got his shoes off, he took off his socks. Good ol’ tube socks. Though soaking wet, he stretched one of the socks as much as he could, then took Potts’ arm and wrapped the sock as tight as he could just above the cut. It was the only he could use as a tourniquet. He made as tight a knot as he could in attempt to tie it off. He then removed his other sock and wrapped it around the slice itself, tying it off with a knot, as well. Kyler pulled off his muddy, wet, and bloody scrub-top, found a claw mark next to the pocket, put his finger through it, and then begin to tear the top into different sizes to use as bandages. He was having trouble with his fingers, because it got suddenly colder, and his wet and torn t-shirt wasn’t much help.
