Wolf Hunt

by Jeff Strand

He pulled off the paper clip and began to unbend it as he returned to the back of the van.

  * * *

  She was almost fully transformed now--or at least appeared to be, since George had no idea how far this was going to go. She seemed to be more of a traditional wolf form than Ivan was in his changed state.

  He didn't bother asking her to fight it anymore.

  Her claws sunk into his shoulder, deep, the same shoulder he'd dislocated. He grabbed her chin and slammed her head against the roof of the cage. That didn't seem to rattle her.

  * * *

  Lou jammed the paper clip into the lock and jiggled it. He wasn't very good with locks. When necessary, that was usually George's job.

  He had the grenades, but they were fragmentation grenades. They wouldn't blow the door off a thick steel cage like this. If the paper clip didn't work, he'd try to shoot it.

  He jammed the paper clip in deeper, as George and Michele struggled, her jaws snapping shut over his face. He slammed her head against the top of the cage again, then a third time, and though it seemed to be helping she still had a hell of a lot of fight left in her.

  Lou's spirits soared as he thought he heard a click, but he tugged on the cage door and it didn't budge. False alarm. He continued to wiggle the paper clip around in the lock, having no idea what he was doing but hoping that he'd luck out. He prayed to every god that he could think of that he'd get this right.

  "Open the cage!" George shouted, unhelpfully.

  This wasn't going to work. Lou had no idea if this was even the kind of lock you could pick with a paper clip. If it was, Ivan would have no doubt figured out a way to make his escape sooner than he did. Hell, if nothing else, he could have used his talons.

  Shit.

  * * *

  Michele was wild-eyed and scary and George had thoroughly gotten over his qualms about fighting with a woman. There was nothing left of the real Michele, as far as he could tell.

  Why was Lou still screwing around with the lock? Popping that thing should have been no problem. Couldn't he see that the she-wolf was winning?

  She hadn't bitten him yet, at least not hard enough to pierce his flesh, but not for lack of trying. In fact, her jaws never stopped snapping open and closed, almost like a slower version of a pair of chattery teeth. His hand was clamped over her throat, and he pushed up as hard as he could, trying to keep her teeth away from his face, but he wasn't going to be able to sustain this for much longer.

  "I can't do this!" said Lou. "Get her away from you! I'll get a gun and shoot her!"

  "What? No!"

  "What else do you want me to do?"

  "Get the cage open!"

  "I can't get the cage open!"

  "Fuck!"

  "I know!"

  George's hand slipped off of Michele's throat, but he elbowed her in the face before she could bite him. He slammed her into the side of the cage.

  Her growl deepened. She seemed absolutely furious.

  * * *

  Rage.

  Pure unrestrained fury.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Kill the prey.

  Eat him.

  * * *

  Lou pulled the paper clip out of the lock and tossed it aside. He was wasting time. He took out the gun and fired two bullets into the lock, turning his head and squeezing his eyes shut in case there was a ricochet.

  "Be careful!" George shouted.

  Lou opened his eyes. "I am being careful!" No impact. Bullets weren't going to do it, either. He could try to shoot Michele and see if bullets worked better on her than Ivan, but there was no way he could guarantee that he wouldn't put a bullet in George instead.

  Once again he ran to the front of the van and climbed inside.

  He shoved his foot into the cage again, but this time Michele avoided his kick. She grabbed his foot and he had a momentary flash of terror as she pulled him toward her.

  George slammed his fist against her arm, breaking her hold. Lou withdrew his foot from within the bars, but then braced both feet against the side of the cage, tightly held the seats of the van, and shoved as hard as he could.

  He was already shot and mauled. Why not add a hernia?

  The pain was intense but not quite unbearable as the cage began to slowly slide along the floor of the van. It had good traction. After everything he'd been through today, he deserved to have something work out.

  Michele slashed George's chest. It looked like a savage wound, although George had suffered so many injuries that Lou wasn't sure if that was a brand new one or an old one being reopened.

  The edge of the cage slid over the back of the van.

  * * *

  George cried out as Michele's claws ripped into his chest. He'd been hit in that same goddamn spot at least two other times today. If it were on the other side, his heart would practically be exposed.

  He grabbed her arm, squeezing hard enough that it might have broken a bone if she were in her human form, and tossed her to the other side of the cage. She struck the door, twisted around, and came back at George.

  Lou continued to shove the cage forward. George wasn't entirely certain that this was a good idea.

  George began to frantically kick at Michele as she lunged at him. Her jaws closed over his shoe and it took three tugs to get it loose.

  The cage began to tilt.

  * * *

  Ivan watched the struggle with a combination of disbelief and amusement. Yeah, he should've just run away, but he had to know what was going on. It was absolutely crazy. Lou should be sobbing over his buddy's corpse while Michele feasted on George's remains. He should most definitely not be pushing the cage out of the van.

  Insane.

  He planned to remain hidden unless it was absolutely necessary to join in the chaos, but there was no way he could turn away from the show.

  * * *

  There was definitely a hernia in Lou's future.

  His legs were now extended all the way. The cage wasn't quite ready to topple over the edge, but it was getting close.

  * * *

  George kicked Michele for what felt like the hundredth time since she transformed. His muscles were so sore that the agony almost threatened to overpower his flesh wounds.

  Michele struck the cage door again, and her weight started the point of no return. The cage did a sharp downward tilt and then slid off the edge of the van, crashing to the ground corner-first with a teeth-rattling clatter. George bashed against Michele, nearly knocking the wind out of him but hopefully hurting her just as bad.

  The floor of the cage slammed down, stirring up a cloud of dirt.

  Michele dove at him. Nope, the impact of the fall definitely hadn't hurt her as much as it did him.

  She pinned him down. George was having difficulty focusing his vision. A trio of she-wolf faces loomed above him.

  Then she slid away as Lou grabbed her leg.

  "I've got her!" Lou announced.

  George scooted to the back of the cage. "What good does that do me? Are you gonna hold her forever?"

  Lou pulled until her leg was entirely out of the cage, and then grabbed the back of her shirt, holding her tight.

  "Get some silver!" George shouted.

  "We don't have any!"

  "What do you mean, we don't have any?"

  "Prescott and Angie took it all!"

  "Why'd they do that?"

  "They didn't think they'd get killed!"

  "Well, do something!"

  Lou glanced to the side. George thought he might be looking for an item that might prove to be useful in this situation, but realized he was wrong as Ivan's werewolf form knocked Lou away from the cage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lou's Decision

  Lou lost his grip on Michele, who instantly pounced back upon George. Lou fell to the ground and raised his gun, but Ivan was already back in the swamp.

  What was that all about?

  He doesn't know what kind of weapons we have, Lou realiz
ed. He has to play it safe.

  At this point, Lou didn't give half a crap about capturing the werewolf. Let Bateman and Dewey seek them out to the ends of the earth. If Lou had the opportunity to stuff a grenade down Ivan's throat, he'd take it without hesitation.

  He did not, however, want to spend the rest of his life in prison, and they'd made a lot of noise. Somebody had to be coming to investigate.

  Lou reached his hand into the cage, nearly got bit, and quickly withdrew it. "Throw her over here," he told George. "I'll shoot her!"

  Lou watched carefully for Ivan as George struggled some more with the she-wolf. After a few violent moments, he managed to push her to the edge of the cage.

  "Hold her still!"

  "I can't hold her still!"

  Lou shot her in the head. Some blood sprayed on George.

  Michele howled and bled. But she didn't flop over and die.

  George scooted away as she came at him again. He kicked repeatedly, desperately trying to keep her on her own side of the cage.

  Now what?

  Leave George to fend for himself?

  No. Absolutely not.

  He wasn't going to leave George here to be torn apart by Michele, although if they ended up in police custody, Lou thought he'd be more than justified in trying to cut a deal and let his partner take most of the fall. He wasn't entirely certain what crimes they'd be charged with, beyond the obvious investigation into their criminal past, but being responsible for a werewolf who killed about a dozen people had to be a pretty serious offense.

  Hell, even if he did kill Michele, it wasn't as if Lou could simply load the cage onto the other van and drive away. George would be a nice little present for the cops. Or, much worse, Ivan.

  He had to get George out of that cage, no matter what. Even if it meant putting his life at risk.

  Concentrate. Get through this. If you pass out now, it'll be a really humiliating and unsatisfying end to this whole thing. Think of how good a warm shower is going to feel tonight. Oh, yeah.

  He went back to the other van, hesitated for a moment as he tried to figure out if he really wanted to do this, then opened up the box of dynamite. It had about ten sticks inside. He probably only needed one, but he took the whole box.

  There were no lighters inside the box, which made sense for safety precautions, but a quick search of a shelf of random supplies turned up a butane lighter with a long shaft, just like the one he had for his grill at home.

  George screamed.

  Lou grabbed a couple more grenades and tossed them into the box, just in case Ivan came back, and then returned to the cage.

  "Did she bite you?" Lou asked, taking out a stick of dynamite. It already had a short fuse attached. Perfect.

  "Not hard! Hurry!"

  "I've got this, George. Don't worry." Okay, if he put the dynamite right next to the cage door, George would be caught in the blast. That was no good. Three feet away, maybe? He was far from a demolition expert.

  "What the hell are you doing?" George demanded.

  "I'm getting you out of there!"

  "Not with goddamn dynamite, you're not!"

  "It's the only way!"

  "No, no, no, no! There are millions of other ways!" George had his hands around Michele's neck again, and his arms quivered as he tried to keep her fangs away from him.

  Lou lit the fuse. "Stay at the back of the cage!"

  "No! No, Lou! Fuck this!"

  "Hands over your ears!" Lou grabbed the box and ran. He caught a glimpse of movement from the swamp. Ivan?

  Michele snarled.

  Lou grabbed a grenade out of the box, and then let the entire box drop to the ground. He pulled the pin and hurled it in what he hoped was Ivan's direction.

  The grenade went off first.

  Then the dynamite went off in a nearly eardrum-bursting explosion. The entire cage lifted several inches off the ground, and toppled onto its side. Lou's ears rang as he watched the smoke clear.

  The cage door hung slightly ajar.

  Victory! Lou hurried over to the cage. George lay on what was now the bottom of the cage, clearly stunned but also clearly still alive.

  Michele's legs had taken the worst of the blast. There wasn't much left of one of them.

  Lou kicked the cage door all the way open. "C'mon, George!"

  George pushed Michele off of him and then scrambled out of the cage. "What the hell was that?"

  "I saved your life!"

  "You could have killed me!"

  "So could she!"

  "Don't do things like that!"

  "You're out of the cage, aren't you?"

  "My legs are all burnt up!"

  "They're not that bad. They're singed."

  "Look what she did to me! I look as bad as you do!"

  "That's why I tried to get you out!"

  "Why didn't you just pick the lock?"

  "It didn't work!"

  "Why didn't you just get the keys from Ivan?"

  "How the hell was I supposed to do that?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Stop yelling at me!"

  "I have to yell! I'm deaf now!"

  "Just thank me, okay?"

  "Okay. Thank you!"

  They both looked down at Michele. She was back to human form, bleeding badly.

  Lou crouched down next to the cage. "Aw, shit, I'm so sorry, Michele."

  She gave him a weak smile, revealing red teeth. "How bad is it?"

  "Pretty bad," said George.

  "I don't think I'll die though," she said. She turned her head and coughed up some blood. When she looked back at them, her eyes glistened. "Don't leave me like this."

  "We won't. I promise."

  "I mean...don't leave me like this. Put me out of my misery. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to hurt people."

  George nodded. He felt absolutely terrible, but if he were in her situation, he'd feel the exact same way. "Lou, are you sure there aren't any silver-tipped arrows left?"

  "I didn't tear the whole van apart, but I didn't see any. George, I don't want to be cold-hearted or anything, but we really need to get out of here."

  "Use the dynamite," Michele said.

  "What?"

  "It'll hurt less than silver, I think."

  Lou took another stick of dynamite out of the box. "Are you sure this is what you want? Maybe we can get you help."

  "There's no help for me. I'm sorry, George. I didn't mean to hurt you."

  George almost looked like his eyes were tearing up. "I'm sorry, too. I thought I was helping you by rescuing you from those dogs. Bad call, huh?"

  "Yeah." Suddenly Michele cried out in pain. The hairs on her arm began to sway as they did before the first transformation. "Oh, God..."

  Lou lit the fuse and dropped the stick of dynamite into the cage.

  Michele picked it up and hugged it to her chest.

  The thugs walked away from the cage.

  The explosion sounded even louder than the first one.

  They looked back. There was nothing left of Michele but some burnt pieces, scattered around the area.

  "Shit," said George.

  "At least she didn't suffer."

  "What do you mean? She suffered a lot."

  "Not from the dynamite, though."

  "Well, that's lovely. If you count only that last second when she got blown to bits, she died a peaceful death. Wonderful. I guess coming into our lives was the best thing that ever happened to that young girl."

  "I just won't say anything else." Lou took another stick of dynamite out of the box while watching carefully for any sign of Ivan.

  "Hey, Ivan!" George shouted. "Did you see that? Sorry you didn't get to make yourself a girlfriend! She was a good choice!" George walked over to the white van and opened the passenger side door.

  "Is he still around?" Lou asked. It seemed unlikely that Ivan would stay in the area having witnessed what happened to the other werewolf, but anything was possible with that cocky bastard
.

  George picked up the tracking device. "Yeah. He's still close." George pointed at the swamp in the same direction where Lou had thrown the grenade. "Do it."

  Lou lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite.

  The explosion sent up a cloud of smoke and burning leaves. Lou felt too sick over what they'd done to Michele to enjoy the sensation of hurling explosives.

  "Did we get him?"

  "No," said George. "Crap. He's on the move."

  "Should we go after him?"

  George stared at the tracking device for a moment. "No, he's running. I don't blame him. We won't be able to catch him on foot. Let's get in the van. When he comes out of the swamp, we'll be ready."

  They got in the van, with George driving. Lou figured that this was around the time when several police cars would come into view, red and blue lights flashing, with a few dozen officers pointing rifles at them, but the path remained empty.

  "Once again, we could just let him go," said Lou.

  "Are you kidding me? With a van full of great stuff? That furry son of a bitch is dead."

  Lou sighed. "All right."

  "You're with me, right?"

  Lou thought about that for a moment. "You know what? I actually think I am. I will be really, really relieved when he's dead."

  "Me too."

  "So...Mexico or Canada when we flee from our former lives?"

  "People are polite in Canada."

  "But it's cold there."

  "I don't speak much Spanish."

  "But again, it's cold."

  "So what?" George asked. "You've spent the entire day complaining that it's too hot."

  "And it is. I don't like Florida heat or Canadian cold."

  "Which is worse?"

  "I'm not sure. Florida heat, I guess."

  "Well, Mexico heat is worse than Florida heat, so I guess that settles it. Time to relearn how to say 'about.'"

  "About," said Lou, pronouncing it a-boot. "I can't believe Michele is dead."

  "Let's not talk about it."

  "What if her pieces are still alive?"

  "What?"

  "I'm just saying."

  "You jackass. Why the hell would you say something like that? I mean, even if you thought it, why would you say it? Her pieces are not still alive, got it?"

  "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm just freaked out by it all."

  "So am I, but that doesn't mean I'm sharing 'living hell' scenarios. She's dead. If we blow Ivan into a billion pieces, he'll be dead, too. Did you see any of those pieces moving?"