by Jeff Strand
Lou picked up a bowling pin as he got back to his feet.
George made another grab for Ivan's legs. Ivan caught George's wrists and gave them a powerful tug that sent twin bolts of pain all the way to his shoulders. Both of George's arms flopped uselessly onto the lane. He would've expected it to hurt twice as much as when he'd had one shoulder dislocated earlier, but it hurt a lot more than that.
Ivan ran at Lou.
Lou swung the pin, bashing it so hard across Ivan's face that the pin broke in half in a shower of wood chips.
George couldn't catch his breath. He felt like he might be having a heart attack. Considering the amount of pain he was in at the moment, that sounded almost relaxing.
* * *
Lou slammed the broken pin into Ivan's chest, trying to use it like a broken bottle. The splinters wouldn't kill him, but Lou just needed to hurt Ivan enough to make him run away. If he ran away, Lou was confident that he could get him with the dynamite that was currently wedged into the waist of his pants.
Mostly confident, anyway.
He really hoped that stuff was stable.
* * *
Ivan had no intention of running away.
He was going to fuck these guys up.
* * *
George rolled onto his side, prayed that his shoulder was in the right spot, and bashed himself against the bowling lane. He thought he might be screaming louder than the blast of the grenades, but he didn't care. God that hurt.
He repeated the process with the other shoulder.
Lou seemed to be holding up...well, poorly. He'd gotten in some good hits, but the werewolf was nowhere near out of commission.
* * *
Lou punched Ivan in the stomach. It was a solid, powerful blow, yet it did nothing.
What if he lit the fuse? Blew them both up.
He'd kill himself, but end the werewolf's rampage forever.
No. Fuck suicide, even heroic sacrifice suicide. He'd poke out the werewolf's eyeballs, kick him away, then blow his ass up, after which, he and George should probably make a hasty retreat for the exit. They were having good luck with the slow arrival of law enforcement agencies today, but that winning streak couldn't last forever.
He extended his thumb and jabbed at Ivan's right eye.
Ivan grabbed Lou's wrist, twisted it, and then shoved it into his mouth.
Lou shrieked as the werewolf's fangs tore through muscle and crunched through bone.
* * *
He bit his hand off! Holy shit! He bit Lou's hand off!
George's arms still weren't working right, but he managed to push himself to his feet. His partner stumbled backwards, slipped in the gutter, and landed hard, blood spraying from his arm.
Ivan gulped down his hand and licked his bloody chops.
Then he frowned.
Shook his head violently.
Gagged.
"The cross!" Lou shouted. "He swallowed the cross!"
Ivan spat out some foam and clutched at his throat. George staggered over to the werewolf. He couldn't believe it. Lou had been right--that furry son of a bitch couldn't deal with a cross, at least one that was sliding down his goddamn windpipe.
If that cross was burning through his insides, George had to make sure it didn't take an efficient route.
Knowing that Ivan was an agent of Satan or something like that made George feel even better about the violence he needed to inflict. He punched Ivan in the face, sending bloody spew flying into the air. Ivan's lower jaw went off-center. A dime-sized hole formed in his throat.
No. That wasn't good enough.
George kicked Ivan's feet out from under him. The werewolf fell. George got down with him. Ivan's eyes were wide with fright as the tiny silver cross continued to do its damage.
Ivan's entire body began to shift from wolf to human and back again, a wave of transformation that ran back and forth from head to toe.
George punched him in the face, then grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to a sitting position. He didn't want the cross to burn out through the back of his neck.
Had to get the heart.
Ivan wailed and swiped at George, but they were weak efforts. Another spot of blood appeared on Ivan's chest, so George tilted him, hoping that he was aiming the cross properly.
Ivan's face became human. He tried to say something but couldn't speak. Probably trying to get in one last smart-ass comment.
Too bad for him.
With a sudden burst of strength, Ivan leaned his head forward and bit at George's arm. His human teeth scraped harmlessly across George's flesh.
Then Ivan gasped, loudly.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Blood poured from his mouth as all strength vanished from his body.
George let him drop.
Ivan, his body half-human, half-wolfman, lay motionless on the bowling lane.
Dead.
Finally.
George tore off his shirt as he hurried over and pulled Lou to his feet. He quickly wrapped the shirt around Lou's bleeding stump, as tightly as he could.
"It's going to be fine," said George. "I promise."
Lou looked like a zombie, but he hadn't completely checked out quite yet. "Is he dead?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, good."
"Just come with me," George said. "If we can beat the cops, everything will be fine."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Wrap-Up
"The werewolf is dead," said Bateman. The phone felt like a live grenade in his hand.
"I know. I saw." Mr. Dewey's tone was hard to figure out. Bateman assumed that it was "tightly controlled rage."
"It wasn't my fault," Bateman insisted. "The guys we hired had an excellent reputation. It was just a simple transport job. He was in a durable cage. Nothing should have gone wrong."
"And yet we're left with a dead werewolf."
"I'm sorry. We did our best."
"I have a huge amount of resources at my disposal, Mr. Bateman. Resources that are no longer of any use to me. Therefore, I'm going to devote these resources to making the rest of your life extraordinarily unpleasant."
Bateman's throat went dry. "Are you threatening me?"
"Yes, I most certainly am. You have just made yourself the worst, and last, enemy of your life."
"Hey, you can't blame me! You want revenge, blame the guys who lost him! You can't come after me for this! I never had to offer him to you in the first place!"
"But you did, and you gave me false hope. I believe that responsibility always starts at the top. I have no interest in the lowlife thugs you hired to do your dirty work. This is all on you."
"Let's talk about this."
"We are talking. It's over for you, Mr. Bateman. Goodbye."
Mr. Dewey hung up. "Hey!" Bateman shouted into the phone. "Hey! You can't do this!"
He tossed the phone against the wall, shattering it. Oh, God, he was so very screwed. He threw up onto his new carpet, then ran out of his office.
"Dad, what's wrong?" Bryan asked. The dumb-ass was playing video games, right there in the living room where Bateman could see, even though he'd been strictly forbidden to do so.
"Pack your things!"
"Why?"
"Because I said so, you stupid fuck!"
"But I've got a date with Mindy tonight!"
Bateman ran across the living room and kicked the widescreen TV as hard as he could, putting a huge hole in the center of the screen. The satisfaction he felt was minimal, but Bryan did get up and hurry off to his room.
Bateman threw up again, then ran off to pack.
* * *
Jonathan Dewey sat silently in his chair.
Helena put her hand on his shoulder. "It'll be okay, honey. We'll find another way. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway."
He pulled away from her hand. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"I just meant--"
"Werewolves do not die of brain tumors, He
lena! I had a chance, and now it's ruined!"
"But--"
"Shut up. Get out of here and leave me alone. I have to send some people off to bring me Bateman's head."
* * *
"We got ripped off, bad," said George.
"Well, I'm sorry we weren't given the opportunity to seek medical care that would have been covered by my insurance." Lou poked at the heavy bandage over his stump.
"We needed that money."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for getting my hand bit off by a werewolf. If I'd known that it would cause problems with our financial situation, I never would have let him do that. I thought you were going to donate everything to charity anyway. Become a better person."
"I never said I was going to donate everything to charity. But I am going to become a better person. Deal with it."
It had been a rough two days. George had thought that Lou was indeed going to bleed to death as they sped away from the bowling alley. He pulled behind the next building, made a tourniquet out of a crossbow bolt and a rag he found in the van, and got the bleeding under control.
The process of cauterization had been ugly.
After a few panicked calls, they found a doctor of ill-repute who was willing to patch up their wounds and hide them away for a couple of days, in exchange for almost all of the cash in the briefcase.
"You couldn't have got us a car with more legroom?" Lou asked, shifting uncomfortably. "I can't make it all the way to Canada in this."
"Then we'll go to Mexico."
"Seriously, George. We need to steal something else."
"Yeah, let's steal a big roomy clown car with flashing lights that makes wacky sound effects. We certainly wouldn't want to be in a non-descript automobile when cops, bad guys, and the general public are all looking for us."
"I didn't say it had to be a clown car. Just something roomier."
"At least your arm takes up less room now."
Lou frowned at him. "Are you really going to make jokes about my hand? Seriously?"
"I'm just trying to make you laugh so you don't cry."
"I'm not gonna cry."
"Good."
"Do you think I'm a werewolf now?"
"Are you bringing that up again?
"Is it really such a terrible thing if I want reassurance? I got bit. I got bit really, really bad." He held up his bandaged stump. "See?"
"You saw how quickly it affected Michele. It's been two days. Maybe it's a special kind of bite. An injection or something."
"I hope so."
"I told you, I'm going to watch over you. You start to feel wolfy, we'll put you in the trunk. Everything's going to be fine. I didn't get my throat torn out by Ivan, so I'm sure as hell not going to get it torn out by you."
"Yeah, you're right. I'm feeling optimistic."
"So am I."
Lou turned on the radio. Some hip-hop music blared over the speakers. "Do you like this song?"
"It's crap."
"Good. I think we'll listen to it." Lou began to move his head back and forth to the beat. "Groove with me, George."
"You look like an idiot."
"I'm an idiot with rhythm. C'mon, groove with me."
George watched him for a moment, then smiled. He cranked up the volume and the two thugs grooved off into the sunset.
Other Books by Jeff Strand
Fangboy
The Sinister Mr. Corpse
Dweller
Benjamin's Parasite
Pressure
Kutter
Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary)
Single White Psychopath Seeks Same
Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)
Gleefully Macabre Tales
The Severed Nose
Disposal
Mandibles
Elrod McBugle on the Loose
Out of Whack
How to Rescue a Dead Princess
The Haunted Forest Tour (with Jim Moore)
Draculas (with JA Konrath, Blake Crouch, and F. Paul Wilson)
Suckers (with JA Konrath)
Visit Jeff Strand's more-or-less official website at http://www.jeffstrand.com
