“You gonna argue with what just happened?”
It was the first semi-calm moment that I had to reflect on all that had just happened. I had been in a shock that had protected me from breaking down into hysterics, but once that momentarily subsided, there was one very sad thing on my mind.
“Deputy Wilson...”
Both Priscilla and Max looked at me with eyes that suggested they didn’t know what to say. “He did his job,” was the only thing Max could muster up. “He wouldn’t be in this line of work if he didn’t know something like this could happen.”
I understood what Max meant, but somehow, dying at the hands of a werewolf was probably something he was unprepared for. How could anyone? It didn’t seem plausible, even after having witnessed it. Poor Deputy Wilson.
“We need to get out of here.” Priscilla trembled. “Just keep driving till we’re in the city or someplace just as equally far.”
“No, we can’t leave without my grandma,” I told her.
Priscilla looked like that was the last thing she wanted to hear. “What?! You actually want to stay?”
“What do you want me to do, let my grandma fend for herself and get killed like everybody else? No, we’re going back for her. I don’t care if I have to walk!”
“No one is walking,” Max clarified, calmly.
“I just don’t think it’s wise to be hanging around when we can easily leave,” Priscilla explained. “How many people end up dead because they’re stupid enough to stick around when they had a perfect opportunity to leave?”
“How many of them had grandmothers that need taking care of?”
“We’re getting Wendy and that’s final,” Max warned harshly. He didn’t take his eyes off the road to look at us, but I could tell there was about a million things going on in his head. It was the same for all of us.
There was no other choice than to find my grandma and take her to safety, and even though I was confident in that decision, I couldn’t help but feel I was putting the other two in needless danger. Priscilla was right, it was stupid to stay here when we had a working vehicle with no wolves in sight, but every fiber of my being told me I needed to make sure Grandma was protected and kept alive. Owen had been wracked with guilt for so many years because he didn’t feel he got to his parents in that fire quickly enough to save them. And a fire, as awful as it is, is nowhere near as inhumane as being eaten alive. I’d never sleep again if Grandma died that way. She’s supposed to be older than dirt and falling peacefully into a death, not ripped apart.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked Max. “Do we go and find my grandma and then hide out till morning? Or do we pile into your truck and get out of town? I’m not sure which is more dangerous; hiding or taking a chance on the road? We were almost killed by just one of those things. What if we’re driving and two of them bombard us and completely flip the truck?”
“That’s not gonna happen again.”
“You don’t know that!” Priscilla shrieked.
“Let’s just focus on getting your grandma,” he told me very intensely. “Then we can figure out where to go next.”
I was hoping he’d have some elaborate plan, but this worked for the moment. I was just praying that when we got there, the place wasn’t overrun with werewolves breaking every window in the house and me having to find Grandma’s lifeless body. I had chills just thinking about it.
“Does anybody have a gun or anything?” Priscilla asked.
“I do at my place,” Max answered.
“You don’t have a rifle in the truck somewhere? I thought you were a hunter. “
“Where the hell am I going to keep it, the glove compartment?”
Priscilla exhaled deeply. “I wonder how many people died back there.”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” I replied quietly.
“Christ, Henry... I didn’t want to go on that date with him, but this is not quite how I imagined I’d get out of it.”
“God, Priscilla, the man just died.”
“I didn’t say I was happy about it, did I?” She rubbed her hands along her nylon knees and looked toward the broken passenger window. “I’m a little in shock, okay? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to be reacting. Some nasty looking monsters just drop kicked a window and killed my date, and you’re telling me it’s a werewolf and I’m supposed to process this? I’m not even sure I’m awake right now.” She kept it together pretty well, but I could tell she was on the brink of some kind of meltdown. Whether it was brought on by fear or sadness, I couldn't be sure, but I knew the sarcasm was her own coping mechanism.
I placed my hand onto her arm and said, “We’ll be all right.” I wanted her to believe it so she could calm down, but really, I wanted to believe it as well. I was in as much shock as Priscilla and all I could think about was how there were too many people I cared about whose whereabouts were uncertain to me.
“I just want this to be over...”
“We’ll get to Grandma’s and then we’ll be safe.”
“If she’s not already...” She stopped herself, but I knew the rest of that sentence.
Max glanced over at us and said, “Your house is far enough that they probably didn’t even bother to go that way.”
“I hope,” I said quietly.
And to Grandmother’s house we went.
Max kept the truck headlights off so we wouldn’t attract any attention, and the road Grandma and I lived on was so dark, he had to slow the truck down a bit just so we didn’t hit any people in case they had escaped into the roads. The party felt so far away, but there had to be people who had survived, coming down this way, eventually.
We finally saw a faint light in the distance, pouring out between the two pieces of wood I had nailed over Grandma's windows. When we got closer, I was absolutely thrilled and shocked to see the place looking untouched. If a werewolf had been here, something would have looked out of place; a knocked over lawn chair, a broken window, but everything remained just as I had left it. I was so overwhelmed with joy, I almost leapt out of the truck before Max had officially parked.
“Wait!” Priscilla yelled as Max and I got out on both sides. “We’re all going inside?” she asked.
“Yep,” Max responded. “You can stay out here and wait if you want.”
“Screw that,” she said and crawled out of the truck.
I ran as fast as I could up those porch steps and to the house that I was practically there in two seconds. The truck had proved itself a decent protection from the wolves that being outside of it, even at my own home, made me feel like a baby crying for its blanket. I was convinced there were werewolves in the distant woods watching us and waiting for us to get comfortable so they could rip my limbs off like they did Freddy.
I practically exploded through the front door and without even looking started shouting, “Grandma! Grandma!”
I heard the toilet flush from the next room and she scooted out. “What’s all the ruckus?”
It was like I had super speed because I was up to her even faster than when I went up the porch steps. “You’re all right, thank God.” I kept running my hands down her arms and shoulders, as if my body were trying to inform my brain that Grandma was okay and I had gotten to her in time.
“What’s going on, dear?”
“A lot of really bad things, Grandma. A couple people were just killed at the fundraiser.”
“Oh, goodness. Do you think they’ll be all right?”
I deadpanned. Did she even compute what I said? “No. Not even close. There are wolves running around hurting people.”
“Now, why would they go and do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. It’s too much to explain right now. Just know that something really, really bad is happening.”
“Well, dear, you’re shaking. Are you all right?”
“No.”
Priscilla was doing the pee dance by the door, only a hardcore edition. “Can we hurry it up? I want to get t
he fuck out of here.”
Grandma pointed at Priscilla. “Who is that lady and why is she cussing?”
“We’ll get to introductions later,” I told her, and then turned my attention to Max. “What’s the plan? What are we doing? We hiding here or leaving?”
“There’s not enough room for all four of us, unless someone rides in the back.”
“That sounds like fun,” Grandma said with an oblivious smile.
“No way,” I said furiously. Just what we needed; people hanging off the back of the truck so werewolves could easily snatch them up and have them for dinner. “We wait it out here then.”
Max shook his head. “We need a gun to protect us. I have plenty at my house.”
“You’re not really thinking of going back out there, are you?”
“I have to.”
“You both are crazy,” Priscilla said. “I say we pack into the truck and get the hell out of town and never look back.”
“We were almost knocked off the road,” I said. “What if that happens again? Maybe our chances are good if we turn off all the lights and hide out here.”
“That sounds good, in theory, but what if one of them shows up and we have nothing to defend ourselves with?” Max asked.
“I have a gun,” Grandma interrupted.
We all slowly turned and looked at her.
“It’s in the fireplace.”
My eyes lit up. “She’s right! I completely forgot she keeps one hidden.”
Max wasted no time in going for the fireplace and digging through the old logs and ash, where underneath a rifle sat. He yanked it out and blew on it to remove all the dirt and then checked to see if it was loaded. It was. If it weren’t for the chaos ensuing at the moment, it may have freaked me out to know there was a loaded gun sitting in the house with a woman on the brink of dementia.
Max attempted to hand the gun to me, but I pulled back like he was holding a giant maggot. “What?” I asked.
“Do you know how to fire a gun?”
I stammered for a minute. “I’m an animal right’s activist.”
Max gave a tiny eye roll. “I wish there were more time to teach you.”
“Pull the trigger, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Why don’t you be in charge of the gun?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
I’m not sure why he ever offered the thing to me. Maybe because it seemed more like mine than his since I was pretty much living here, and he seemed hell bent on going to his place to get his own.
“You guys stay locked up and I’ll be back with more ammunition,” he said.
“You can’t be serious. You can’t go out there on your own. You need backup.”
“Somebody needs to watch over your grandma.”
I don't know what came over me, but the second an idea popped into my head, I immediately acted on it. I ripped open the closet door where we kept our coats, grabbed Grandma by the arm, and then shoved her inside so quick I don't think she registered what was happening. “You’ll be safe in there!” I yelled. I grabbed a fire poker and jammed it into the crease of the door so it was incapable of opening without its removal. With my grandma’s bad memory, I couldn’t trust that she would remember to stay hidden and out of danger without me.
Through the wall she very calmly stated, “Dear, you know I don’t like closets.”
“Believe me, you’ll like what’s out here even less.”
“I’d have to see for comparison sake.”
Max scoffed loudly. “I see the family resemblance more and more.”
“What the hell are you guys doing?” Priscilla asked. “I thought we were leaving town, not running around for guns.”
“No, that’s what you thought we were doing.”
“We’re all going to die this way. You do realize that, right?”
“I make a living at hunting animals. I know what I’m doing. It’d be wrong of me to stand idly by and let everyone get killed when I could be doing something.”
“You’re both insane!”
Priscilla started going into a tizzy, yelling and screaming, and if there were more people here it’d be causing a scene. I could see how freaked out she was about everything, and rightfully so, but she was too hysterical to take with us, and too hysterical to trust. I gave Max one look, and instantly he ripped the fire poker out from the closet and shoved a yelling Priscilla inside with Grandma.
Max and I ran for the door, and before we left, I heard my grandma very calmly say to Priscilla, “Hello, dear, my name’s Wendy,” like they were two old chums having tea in the closet. Even without a visual, I could actually feel Priscilla's eyes rolling.
We got in the truck and burrowed our way down the street toward Max’s. Funny, how I had done my best to not go anywhere near his house when there wasn’t even a full moon, yet there were werewolves everywhere and I was choosing to go there.
He threw the rifle on my lap and I yelped and threw it in the air. “Hot potato, whoa!” I didn’t want it pointed anywhere near me.
“You shouldn’t be with me,” he said calmly with his eyes to the road.
“Someone should be.”
“I hunt alone all the time, Cora.”
“Well, they’re not deer, Max. You saw the carnage back there. You saw what they’re capable of. I don’t care how handy you are with a gun, you could end up having your ass handed to you. I’m already in the truck, so we may as well not argue about this.”
He shook his head. “You are tenacious.”
“And I survived one of these things. If you want anyone around, it’d be me.”
“No offense, but it was your running skills that kept you alive, not your way with a gun.”
“Then we have a plan; you shoot, I run.”
Max scoffed at my idea. “I’ll come up with the plans if you don’t mind.”
Out of nowhere, there was suddenly a figure standing in the center of the road. The headlights came up on them quickly, just enough for me to see it was a blonde woman, but the truck was going too fast and the woman wasn’t moving.
“Max!” I yelled. We were about to run this person over.
Max jerked the steering wheel to the right to zigzag out of the pathway to this woman, who stood there helplessly shielding her face with her hands like it would do something. We had been going too fast and the quick turn to the right actually made the truck lean on its side. I held onto my seat as Max struggled to get us back on the road. I was actually, at one point, in the air. The tire thudded back down to the cement and I nailed my head on the roof. But we were still going too fast and we went nose first right down the slope on the side of the road and into one of the trees on the rim of the forest.
Max coughed and pulled himself off of the steering wheel. “You alive?”
I had managed to remain in my seat, but the seatbelt had scraped against the side of my neck. “I think so,” I replied to him.
He turned the keys in the ignition, but the truck wouldn’t start. I couldn’t believe it, it was so typical of this to happen during a crisis.
“Did you hit her?”
“What?”
“Did you hit that woman?” I clarified.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“We need to check on her and see if she’s all right.” Even when I finished that sentence, I realized how stupid it was for me to be crawling out of that truck onto that street that had caused me so many nightmares. But was else were we to do? The truck wasn’t starting, and it didn’t look like a quick fix, because as soon as I slid out of the truck, I saw that the whole front end was smashed right into the tree. I mean, just smashed. I’m surprised we weren’t seriously injured. Who knows, maybe I was and was in too much shock to notice.
The woman was down on her knees in the middle of the road, coughing with her head hung low and her blonde hair creating a veil around her face.
“Are you all right?” I called to her. It looked li
ke it was painful to move, so she lifted her head up very, very slowly. When she looked at me I realized that I recognized her; it was Dana from the party.
“I hurt,” she replied and then practically choked.
There was blood all over her bare arms, so much so she was practically bathing in it. She looked like Carrie after the bucket of pig’s blood was dropped on her.
“How did you get out here?” I asked her.
“I was running,” she said and then sniffled. “They were everywhere and I went running as fast as I could. I left everybody behind.”
“It’s all right, you just didn’t want to die.”
“Tiffany’s dead. What am I going to do?”
I approached her slowly and bent down onto my knees so I could get to her level on the road. I wanted to scream and yell at her that she needed to get out of the open, but Dana looked to be in some kind of horrible state of shock, so I needed to take my time with her, even if Max was glaring at me and telepathically telling me we needed to go.
I put my hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner, but she winced immediately. I took my hand away and realized right where I had put it was a large gash. It was where all the blood was coming from. I, at first, thought some of the blood was from the shattered window or even from the other people who were bleeding out all around us at the hall, but upon further investigation, I realized something much more horrific; a bite mark.
Immediately, I jolted to my feet and stepped backward. “Oh, God...” I said quietly. If she was bitten, I knew exactly what this meant. Scott’s had been a small slice that took a day to go into effect. Dana’s, however, looked like she had a hole in her, which meant her transformation was going to kick in a lot quicker.
“Max,” I whispered as I backed up into him. “She’s been bitten.”
Dread instantly took over his face as he stared at me. His grasp tightened around the rifle in his hand and I shook my head. I understood why Max was thinking what he was thinking, but we couldn’t gun down a helpless woman in the street just because of something that may happen to her. It'd be murder.
“Did one of the wolves bite you?” I asked her.
Very slowly she nodded. “One of the cops killed it when it was on top of me.” So, that meant two were dead, including the one Deputy Wilson took out before his own death. I could only recall seeing three at the time, but it was very possible that there were more. It was hard to keep count amid the madness. “It tried to eat me... the cop got it off me only for it to then eat him. What is happening?” Dana then burst into a fit of hacking and coughing.
Lunar Rampage (Lunar Rampage Series Book 1) Page 26
