The Original's Return (Book 2): The Original's Retribution

by David Watkins

  “Knowles, you are way out of line here. I did not order Sergeant Bryant to do anything of the sort. As far as I know, Sergeant Bryant was here when Foster was killed.”

  Knowles sank back in his chair. He had been sure he was right. “You didn’t ask him to-”

  “Don’t finish that sentence Knowles,” Raymond said. “I fought for you to remain on this op. Should I have let them throw you to the wolves?” He winced at his poor choice of words but maintained eye contact with Knowles.

  “No, sir.”

  “Good, then cut the crap about Bryant. He’s a good soldier and a good man to have on your side if things go south. You are suggesting that he ripped apart a man on my orders? I could have you canned for even thinking that.”

  “Sorry, sir.” It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Knowles brushed at the sweat beading on his brow. “Guess I’m not thinking straight, sir.”

  “Jesus Christ Knowles.” Raymond was close to shouting now. “How could you think that I was capable of this? What would I gain from it?”

  Knowles remained silent.

  “For God’s sake, Knowles. I want this problem resolved, not made public. What you’re suggesting is ridiculous. This island will be free of wolves before the end of this year. We will stamp them out. Do you understand? We will work together, not concoct bullshit conspiracy theories. Now get out of my sight.”

  As Knowles stood, the phone rang. Raymond listened intently then shouted at Knowles to close the door. He covered the mouthpiece.

  “They found Stadler. A couple of guys shot him dead at a roadblock.”

  “He’s not dead.”

  “I know, he’s just been shot again trying to escape.”

  “They need to tie him up, with chains if they can.”

  Raymond nodded and repeated the instructions. He hung up and looked at Knowles with a sour grin on his face. “Looks like you could be useful after all. Get Bryant, get a bird, go get Stadler.”

  “Sir, Bryant asked for some personal time this afternoon. Seeing a doctor, I think.” Shrink probably, but no soldier would ever admit that.

  Raymond swore to himself.

  “Sir, Stadler trusts me and knows me. I can go alone.”

  After a moment, Raymond nodded. “Don’t cock this up, Sergeant.”

  Chapter 7

  1

  Bryant slowly stripped off and put the green plastic nightgown over his head. Neatly folding his clothes, he placed them in the locker next to his bed. Once done, he sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

  This would be the last time he would come here. Of that, he was certain. The small private hospital was only three miles from the base, but it was the dictionary definition of discreet. When he had started coughing up blood, it was the only place he even considered going to. The diagnosis had been bad, and the prognosis worse.

  Six months.

  Bryant had come to terms with his own mortality years ago: most soldiers did. When you see death on a daily basis, you have to. He had not expected to go like this, though. In his head, it had always been in a storm of bullets, hopefully saving the life of someone in his team in the process. Not this. Months of chemo and a cocktail of pills large enough to count as a three-course meal.

  Drastic times require drastic measures.

  Now, Doctor White had asked him to stay a little longer. Bryant knew that his blood tests had been analysed already, why else ask him to stay? All he had to do now was come up with a convincing reason for his miraculous recovery. Somehow, impaling himself on a magic bone would not really cut the mustard.

  The door opened and White came in, holding a clipboard. He shook Bryant’s hand.

  “Jamie, I have some really remarkable news.” White’s face creased as he smiled. It made him look even older.

  “Yes?”

  “I cannot find any tumour markers in your blood.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know! I’ve never seen anything like it,” White paused. “A tumour marker allows us-”

  “Doc, seriously, I don’t care. Just tell me what it means.”

  If White was offended by his interruption, he didn’t show it. “I cannot find any trace of cancer in your blood sample.”

  “So, that’s good news, right?”

  White nodded. “It’s marvellous news, Jamie. I’ve never seen anything like it and I can’t explain it.”

  “Who cares, right?”

  This time, White laughed. “The medical profession, Jamie. You’re a miracle.”

  Bryant looked at the ridiculous gown. “I don’t feel like one.”

  “I have to run some tests, see if I can get to the bottom of this.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “But,” White looked shocked. “But, whatever has happened might lead to a breakthrough in cancer treatments. You might be the key to curing this once and for all.”

  “I don’t care. You’re not running more tests.” Bryant stood, heading for the locker.

  “Jamie, please-”

  Bryant ignored him. White started breathing hard.

  “Jamie, this is not reasonable behaviour. Please reconsider.”

  Bryant opened the locker.

  “Well, at least sign this so the blood tests can run. Please.”

  He closed the locker. “What tests?”

  White waved the clipboard at him. “The army are looking for miracle cases. I have sent your blood to them.”

  Bryant felt his head start to throb. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s done. All I need is your signature and my secretary can send the package off. It’s all done, you don’t need to do anything.”

  Shit.

  “Where’s the package?”

  “It’s on her desk, ready to go. Please, just sign this.” White looked at him hopefully, eyebrows raised and a smile on his lips. The smile wavered as he saw the expression on Bryant’s face. “What’s wrong?” White heard the tremor in his own voice and didn’t like it. He had treated servicemen and women before, including lots of Special Forces people like Bryant, but none had looked at him like that.

  Bryant arched his back, making it pop audibly and then he pointed a finger at White. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  White started. The voice didn’t sound like Bryant and he started to back away, realising that he really had made a terrible mistake.

  2

  The door opened and a nurse ran in. The wolf snarled and then leapt at her. Its jaws closed around her neck, severing her head in one bite. A corridor led away from the consulting room, two doors either side. One of those opened now and a doctor peered out. The wolf ran towards her, the screams energising it. The doctor tried to close the door, but the wolf was too big, too strong.

  The door flew off its hinges, smashing the doctor on the head. She fell to the floor and the wolf was on her, biting through her clothes and into her stomach. The doctor screamed and screamed until she died. The wolf heard a sound behind it and turned in a jump.

  Another nurse stood in the doorway, her mouth open in shock. She was frozen to the spot. The wolf snarled, breaking the spell and the nurse fled. With another jump, it landed on her back and bit into her neck, ripping her throat out.

  The wolf was now in another short corridor. A flicker of deeply hidden memories came to the fore and it knew that the door ahead of it lead to reception and from there, the car park. It jumped at the door, bursting through it. Reception appeared to be empty. The wolf sniffed. Yes, there. It jumped onto the desk, then hopped to the other side. Underneath the desk, the receptionist was hugging her knees, shaking in terror.

  “Please,” she got as far as saying.

  3

  Bryant stepped into the car park, feeling more alive than at any other moment in his life. Energy coursed through his veins, his cock almost painfully hard. He looked around the car park. His car was the only one there. Good. Less to cover up. He had,
in wolf form, smashed the whole of the hospital to pieces. Every computer, desk and camera had been destroyed. In human form, he had double checked for safes or backup computers. He had also destroyed every single blood sample he could find.

  Satisfied, he had then dressed. The gore surrounding him hadn’t bothered him in the slightest. In fact, it had turned him on even more. Now, he was free.

  He walked to his car, whistling to himself, but then, something made him turn to the tree line at the edge of the car park. A woman stood there, calmly watching him.

  A witness.

  He stood still. The woman waved, and he realised she was naked. Bryant grinned. She turned into a wolf and watched him.

  Bryant sauntered over to her. This is turning into a great day.

  4

  The female wolf turned and ran as he approached, but stopped about ten metres away. He jogged towards her and she ran away again. I haven’t got time for games. She stopped again, same distance away. They were now in the woods that lay behind the doctors’ offices. Bryant ran towards her, his lust overcoming his annoyance at her game playing.

  She looks like a wolf and I still want her. I am one sick bastard. He laughed to himself. Full belly, hard cock, no morals. A twig snapped behind him and he turned, assuming a martial arts stance immediately. A man stood behind him, watching him intently. The man was also naked. From a tree next to him, another man stepped out, then a woman and so on around the clearing until he was surrounded by naked people. The original wolf turned back into a woman and put her arm around the biggest man.

  Damn.

  “What do you want?” Bryant asked.

  “You,” said the man. He patted the woman on her bottom and stepped into the clearing. “We have come to help you.”

  “Do I look like I need help?”

  “No,” the man smiled. “Your work was most impressive.”

  They watched that? They sat back and watched those people get eaten? “Don’t get any funny ideas, mate, I’ll happily do the same to you.”

  “We have not come to fight you.”

  “Well, what do you want then?”

  “We have come to worship you.”

  Bryant looked at the faces surrounding him. He counted twelve people in all. Their faces were hard, bodies toned more than most soldiers he had served with. Despite the hard looks, there was a fervour in their eyes.

  “Why worship me?”

  “Why do you need to ask?” The man looked shocked.

  “Worship is a strange word.” Respect I could live with. Blind worship tends to get people killed.

  “You are the most powerful of all of us here. This is my pack, gathered from the survivors.” He watched Bryant, looking for understanding. “I give it to you.”

  “You are crazy mate. You know that?”

  “I am not the person who followed a naked woman into the woods, even though she turned into a wolf.”

  Bryant laughed. “Fair one.”

  “My name is Carl Rogers.”

  “Jamie. But call me Bryant, everyone else does.”

  A buzzing sound came from Bryant’s pocket. He pulled out his mobile and scowled. “Nobody make a sound.” Without waiting for assent, he pressed the answer button. “Knowles. I’m busy.”

  Rogers watched him as he listened. Something about the man’s demeanour really irritated Bryant. “Ok, I’m on my way. I’m an hour out.”

  “You have to leave?” Rogers raised an eyebrow. He looked like a hairy version of Roger Moore.

  “That was my boss. Sort of.”

  “You no longer have a boss. You are in charge of yourself.”

  “Ok, mate, I don’t really have time for some mickey mouse zen crap, so I’m just going to go now.”

  “When will we see you again?”

  This was from the woman that he’d followed. Rogers looked irritated that she’d spoken, and the look intensified when Bryant smiled at her.

  “You found me once. Guess it won’t be hard for you to find me again.” Besides, I can smell you, so pretty sure you can smell me.

  He turned and started to head back to the car park. One of the men stepped into his path.

  “Ryan-” Rogers said.

  Bryant felt his mouth change. One minute he was smiling at Ryan, then his whole face changed into a wolf’s and he roared at the other man. Ryan jumped back, face pale, eyes wide as Bryant changed back, the same grin on his face.

  “Next time, I bite.”

  Bryant walked out of the woods, once again whistling to himself.

  Chapter 8

  1

  Jack opened his eyes and tried to sit up. He couldn’t move. Here we go again. He concentrated on his arms, forcing the change into them.

  “Really, Jack, don’t bother.”

  The familiar voice broke his concentration and he felt the power ebb. He craned his head towards the speaker. Knowles waved with his left hand. The gesture was almost sarcastic. In his other hand, Knowles was loosely holding a revolver, not quite pointing it at him.

  “Hi, Jack.” Knowles smiled. “You really could use a shower.”

  “Untie me, Knowles.”

  “Nope.”

  “I can just break these you know.”

  “Carbyne chain? I doubt it.”

  “A what?”

  “You should be flattered, really Jack. That stuff holding you down is based on carbyne. This could well be the only chain of the stuff in the UK and it’s being used to keep you tied up.” Knowles shrugged, indicating that he didn’t know what carbyne was either.

  “Where am I, Knowles?” We’ll see about the chains.

  “Kent. Different base, but back in Kent. Turns out it’s where they launched the helicopters from.” Jack did not feel better with that knowledge. The last time he had seen helicopters, they had been used to look for him. The time before that, they had been used to blow a base to pieces.

  Jack groaned. “Why am I in chains?”

  “You tried to escape. My boss wants you tied up, so you’re tied up.”

  “I had to go, Knowles. You know that.”

  Knowles shrugged. “Yes. I understand Jack, but I still have to follow orders.”

  “I thought they’d have fired you.”

  “It was close.”

  “All I wanted was my family, Knowles,” Jack said. “You know that. I never wanted to hurt anyone.” He looked at the ceiling, feeling tears well. “But I was going to put them in danger.”

  “I know. But you should’ve come back with me.”

  “And let them cut me open?” Jack raised his eyebrows. “We both know that’s what eventually would’ve happened.”

  “You’d have healed.”

  “Maybe. But that’s not really a chance I want to take.”

  “Where have you been anyway?”

  “Away.”

  “Very good Jack, you can play it like that if you want,” Knowles said. “I am your friend remember?”

  Jack turned his head away from Knowles. It was true that Knowles had shown him kindness. He and the female medical captain. They were the only ones who had been nice to him. Even when he’d shown he could control it, the others had still been wary of him. When the base had gone to a skeleton crew – even then – he had not been trusted. He had been a prisoner he realised now, and no amount of cooperation would have got him home to his family. What was her name? Clara? Claire? Something like that. She was gone however, Callum had seen to that.

  “What happened at that base wasn’t your fault Jack.”

  “Then whose was it?”

  “You’re a good man, Jack. Not like those other things.”

  “I’ve killed people, Knowles, you know that.”

  “Not for months.”

  Another memory swam into his mind. The wolf bearing down on Katie and Josh just before Jack’s jaws tore its throat out. A few more seconds and he would have been too late.

  “That’s not strictly true.”

  “It is. You’ve not k
illed a person for months.”

  This time, Jack didn’t miss the emphasis. So that’s the way of it. “Knowles, I am one of them, you know.”

  “No, you’re different.”

  Jack laughed. “How? There is a beast in me.”

  “Which you can control. You are not like the others.”

  “How do you know the others can’t control it either?”

  Knowles stayed silent, staring at him until Jack turned away.

  What have you done Knowles? “What happens now?”

  “I take you to see my boss. He decides from there.”

  “And if he wants me dead?”

  Knowles grinned. “I’d kinda like to see him try.”

  “Before we go, there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “I was coming to you, when they caught me. I was trying to find you.”

  Knowles looked surprised. “Why?”

  “There’s another one. Like me. Callum called me one.” Jack saw Knowles shudder at the mention of that name. “An Original. There’s another one.”

  2

  Knowles sat next to Jack, mouth agape. Another one. “How do you know?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don't know. I felt it.”

  “You a Jedi now, Jack?” There was no mirth in Knowles' voice. When Jack didn't answer, Knowles pressed on: “What does it mean?”

  “I don't know,” Jack said again. “But, I can’t help thinking about when this happened to me. I could have used some help.”

  Knowles nodded. He didn't need reminding of how bad it had been when he and Jack had first met. Knowles still awoke some nights in a sweat. Sometimes it was the blood-smeared floor surrounding the corpse of a young doctor, other times it was some street thugs in Barnstaple getting ripped apart. They weren't thugs, though, not really. Just some drunks who had, quite literally, bitten off more than they could chew in taking on Jack.

  “Do you know how to find him?”

  Jack shook his head. “But I think I'll know when I'm close to him – or her.”

  “How close?”

  “I don't know.”

  The radio on his belt buzzed at that moment. Knowles unclipped it and walked away from Jack’s bed. “Yeah?”