Wolf Land

by Jonathan Janz

  Glenn pushed himself up on an elbow, attempted to speak, but his throat was a white-hot sheet of flame. He coughed, tears streaming down from his eyes, and clutched his burning esophagus.

  “Easy,” Weezer soothed. “There’s nothing so important right now it can’t wait. What matters is we’re all just fine, and we’ll be at your house within minutes.”

  Glenn tried to swallow, couldn’t. Finally, he was able to manage, “The girls will see me.”

  “I’ll park in the garage,” Weezer said, “and come out meet them.” Weezer’s one-eyed face scowled at Glenn in the overhead mirror. “You haven’t installed a security light recently, have you? One of those motion detectors?”

  Glenn shook his head.

  “Then they won’t see you pass from the garage to the house,” Weezer said.

  Glenn decided this made sense. His garage was detached, which was unfortunate given his current situation. But it was darker than a grizzly bear’s asshole out there, and the girls would need night-vision goggles to make out anything more than a vague figure when Glenn attempted to get inside.

  They turned off Rangeline Road onto County Road 575, off of which Glenn’s house and its four acres of land were situated.

  “Almost there,” Weezer said. “When we reach the garage, you bust ass out the side door and go straight to the bathroom by the laundry room.”

  Glenn nodded, seeing the logic. It wasn’t the bathroom he typically used, but it was the most isolated, the one farthest from the front door. There was a shower there too.

  Weezer’s voice was focused, businesslike. “I’ll pick up a little speed. There’s no way the girls will lose us when we’re the only cars out here. Well, Mya might lose us. She’s got a brain like a radish. Anyway, Rebecca’s sexier.”

  Glenn stared at his friend with dawning shock. “You’re still planning on…” He licked his lips, made a face at the coppery taste. “…you know, partying with them?”

  Weezer’s laugh made Glenn’s toes curl. “Come on, Glenn. You know better. We’re going to do a lot more than party with them.”

  And as they crunched into Glenn’s driveway and made for the stygian gloom of the garage, Glenn tried not to think about what Weezer’s sharkish grin might portend.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Joyce strode down the Bluff Street sidewalk, her face upraised. Only since the bonfire had she begun to realize how lovely the night could be, how intoxicating. Like being surrounded by velvet and silk, the quiet houses and the silence like a painting come to life around her. She loved her books, felt an almost orgasmic joy at curling up with a great novel in her flannel sheets and down comforter. Yet this…this was living. This was drinking rather than reading about wine, this was tasting rather than imagining the warm, heady merlot.

  My, what she wouldn’t give to share this with someone.

  Someone like Glenn.

  The skin of her chest burning, Joyce forced herself to keep the thought of Glenn at arm’s length, at least until she climbed under the covers tonight. For now, there was enough beauty to divert her from the body-racking waves of lust that had besieged her the last couple nights. She looked around, breathed deeply of the fragrant air. Bluff Street was dark and deep and very much like she imagined it would have been a hundred years before. All the houses were that old, the library much older.

  The library, she thought. Yes.

  Joyce’s steps quickened. Had she known she’d end up at the library tonight? Perhaps on some level she had. Because she knew there was work to do. A part of her, one so shrouded in paranoia and uncertainty she didn’t care to examine it, suspected the work would be nasty and unsettling.

  But that was madness, of course. Lycanthropology was a diverting read, but the author’s earnestness and scholarly tone couldn’t conceal the underlying luridness of the subject matter, nor could the multitude of Dr. Clark Lombardo Coulter’s leaps in logic be ignored. It was no wonder he’d been labeled a lunatic.

  Yet she already had proof of his theories, didn’t she?

  She had been badly bitten, but she had healed within hours.

  Irrefutable.

  She had grown stronger, healthier, even if her new desires were a bit peculiar.

  Incontrovertible proof.

  No, this wasn’t fiction, wasn’t just a wives’ tale or a fanciful legend.

  This wasn’t a horror movie.

  This was real.

  Joyce was transforming.

  And what was more, deep down, she wanted it, wanted the transformation to happen. Had the others turned yet? God, there was so much to think about, so much to learn.

  Joyce reached the library and glided up the steps. At the double doors, she paused, the key inches from the lock.

  She heard sirens.

  Police sirens. An ambulance. Headed north. Odd, but not necessarily abnormal. There were many reasons the sirens could be blaring, most likely some nonagenarian at the retirement village having passed on.

  A man in his late fifties appeared under a streetlamp across the street and proceeded down the sidewalk. He was walking a dog so small it would get stuck in a mousetrap, the kind of tufted, shaven creature that yipped and nipped and generally made her wonder what the fun of owning it could possibly be. But the man would dote on it, she was sure.

  Even as she watched, dog and man moved into a spotlighted circle of sidewalk and paused, the man kneeling beside the dog and scratching it under the chin. The little dog’s eyes watched the man adoringly, and Joyce thought, That’s nice. Now look over here.

  But the man continued to scratch; the dog continued to adore its owner.

  Joyce bit her bottom lip. It was true she was relatively obscured by the shadows on this side of Bluff Street, and the man had no reason to suspect the presence of another person at this time of night. After all, who walked alone after ten o’clock? Who but dog owners and the ultralonely?

  Warm moisture and the taste of sheared metal brought Joyce’s attention to her bottom lip. She swept two fingers over her bleeding lip, and my, had she bitten it! The blood was trickling over her chin, tracing a capillary-thin streak down her neck. She knew it would soak into her green top, knew the bloodstain would be difficult to remove.

  And she didn’t care. What she wanted was the man to look at her. Was that so much? She wanted him to rise from his worshipful canine genuflecting and to by God notice her. Look! Joyce thought angrily. I’m more interesting than the rat-dog!

  The man rose, but only to slide a hand inside his hip pocket. He produced a smattering of small chunks, a treat for the dog. Of course. The ratlike animal gobbled them lustily from its owner’s hand.

  Seeing the dog’s paddle-shaped tongue reminded her that she was still shredding her lip. The trickle had become a stream. Joyce took a step toward the man, daring him to see her.

  But no, it was still too shadowy. So she moved toward the edge of the sidewalk, now on the curb, now on the street. Man and dog continued forward, cocooned in their simple bond, and Joyce’s fingers curled, her forearms tensing. Look at me, damn you! LOOK AT ME!

  Man and dog pulled even with her. They didn’t spare her a look.

  Joyce fell in step with them, noting as she did the chorus of sirens wailing toward the drive-in and the fast-food places. There must be something serious going on, a reaction like that. This was no dead nursing home resident, no raisin-skinned woman in a wheelchair being defibrillated. This was a house fire or a deadly car accident. This was…this was…

  An opportunity, she realized. Yes. If the police and the fire department and the ambulances were all indisposed, that meant she could indulge the urge that had been growing in her for the past couple nights. Funny, she thought as she crossed the street, she hadn’t even been aware of the desire. She’d noticed changes in her behavior, alterations in her body chemistry. She’d studied Lycanthropology
as though it were the third stone tablet Moses toted down from Mount Sinai, but what she hadn’t done was examine the need that was building in her.

  It was so simple, she realized as she neared the man. Perhaps it had been in her all along, and her near-death experience had merely awakened it.

  But no, she thought, to say her brush with death had given her a new perspective on life was too trite, too reductionist. She didn’t feel that way at all.

  Yet she did feel alive. Alive in a way she never had. She mounted the curb a few feet ahead of the man, who glanced at her, startled. The dog immediately yipped and darted at her, and might have bitten her had the leash not caught it and planted it on its stubby-tailed ass. It scrambled clumsily to its feet, began hopping on its hind legs, the man soothing it with tender strokes. Joyce stood over the pair, barring their way, and waited for the man to speak to her.

  “Shhh-shhh, Orson,” the man said. “Shhhh.”

  “Is he named after the director or the author?” Joyce asked.

  The man stood, adjusted his glasses. “I don’t go to the movies.”

  Joyce had mixed feelings about this answer.

  The man frowned at her, adjusted the thick black frame of his spectacles. “Why, you’re bleeding.”

  Joyce watched him impassively.

  “You’re bleeding,” the man repeated.

  “Yes,” Joyce said. “I am.”

  The man cleared his throat. He reminded Joyce of someone you’d meet at a church potluck. One of the elders. Not elderly, but over sixty. He looked like someone from her childhood. No one specific, but the kind of faceless, conservative man who’d wear an outdated suit to church.

  “Well,” he said, “if you’re sure you’re okay—”

  “I’m not.”

  Behind his spectacles, his owlish eyes blinked at her. “Not what?”

  “Not sure I’m okay. You never asked.”

  He stared at her, bemused. Orson watched her too. Put some glasses on the dog, and its expression would be identical to its owner’s.

  “You never asked if I was okay,” she explained. “You just told me I was bleeding, which I already knew.”

  The man blinked, his mouth opening and closing. Then, he coughed into a fist. “Hm. Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said at once.

  “No,” the man repeated.

  “Uh-uh,” she said. “I’m very far from okay.”

  The man turned, glanced in the direction of the distant sirens. “Maybe you should, I don’t know…” He gestured feebly toward the noise. “Maybe you should go down…”

  She leaned toward him, eyebrows raised. “Go down…”

  He cleared his throat, motioned to the north. “You know, investigate what’s happening.”

  “Your advice is for me to investigate the sirens.”

  He chuckled, a miserable, embarrassed sound. Cleared his throat. “I just thought they, you know, might be able to administer aid to you. If they’re not all occupied by…”

  “Look at me.”

  He did, his eyes widening.

  Joyce placed her index finger on her bottom lip, massaged the wound until her fingertip was enameled in blood. Then, her eyes never leaving his, she stuck the finger into her mouth, sucked on it languidly.

  The man stared at her, spellbound. Orson didn’t so much as growl.

  “Did you like that?” she asked.

  The man started slightly, his lips trembling on the verge of speech.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  The man didn’t move. So she reached out, took the hand that wasn’t grasping Orson’s leash. Brought it toward her.

  “You might avoid…” the man said, his voice hollow. “I mean, that’s the hand that Orson licked…the dog saliva…”

  Looking deep into the man’s eyes, Joyce placed his flat palm on the flesh where her throat and chest merged, and began smearing the bloody contrails all over. Her Adam’s apple, her shoulders. Her cleavage.

  The man jerked his hand away. Orson had begun to yip.

  In the absence of his hand, Joyce reached up, dragged her fingers over her bottom lip, which was still leaking, and wetted them. She slid the glistening fingers over her jaw, her neck, let them slide over her breasts, which were covered by the stretchy jade fabric but very much alive and tingling.

  The man swallowed, backpedaling. “You have…” he said, licking his lips. “You have problems, I think.” And turned in the direction he’d come, speed-walking toward the glow of the streetlamps. Orson watched her over his shoulder, the little feet pattering to keep up.

  Joyce smiled, watching him go. She thought of how much her mother would disapprove of her behavior and felt an almost sexual thrill at the rebellion.

  Her body tingling, Joyce recrossed the street and let herself inside the library.

  Glenn let the scalding water from the showerhead assault him.

  The music was so damned loud Glenn was sure the speakers would be damaged, if not blown. Under normal circumstances, this would have enraged him, would have led to a severe beat down of the person who inflicted the damage on his speakers—they’d cost him two grand, for chrissakes—but at the moment the monetary loss seemed utterly insignificant.

  All that mattered were the two corpses at the drive-in.

  His stomach clenched, and Glenn regurgitated more hunks of pink meat. He kept his eyes studiously shut so as not to glimpse what lay on the floor of the beige tub. He knew there was a lot of it, the meat, because the water level had begun to rise, which meant that there was enough collected in the drain to clog the goddamned thing. And the thought of all that meat burbling down there was enough to get him purging again. His throat felt like someone had dragged sadistic fingernails up and down its length, the tender flesh within harrowed into pink, blood-tinged curls. Glenn’s gorge threatened to rocket upward again, but he focused on the music, the earsplitting, headache-inducing music, and slowly, his stomach muscles began to unclench.

  At least Weezer had selected good artists. His tastes were stuck in time, but if he was going to be stuck in any time, Glenn figured, the late eighties were as good as any. Over the last twenty minutes, while Glenn had upchucked in the shower, Weezer’s playlist had included Guns ‘N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and now Motley Crüe. The album Weezer was currently spinning was one of Glenn’s own mixes. The bruising notes of “Primal Scream” shook the tile under Glenn’s fingers. His skull felt like it would split.

  He knew he couldn’t stand here forever, and besides, the water had cooled appreciably. He reached out, twisted off the water. He pushed aside the curtain, was about to step out onto the mat, when he caught a glimpse of the tub drain. Or rather where the tub drain should have been.

  Among the chunks of meat lay a human fingertip, sheared neatly off at the top knuckle.

  “Oh my Jesus Christ,” Glenn moaned and promptly sprayed wine-colored bile all over the wall. “Oh shit,” he muttered, his chest heaving. “Oh shit.”

  He stumbled out of the bathtub, snagged a towel, and glanced at the mirror. It was too steamed up to reveal his face, so he reached out, wiped it with the towel, and peered into his reflection.

  He looked the same. That was the remarkable thing. Sure, there was a strained expression on his face, maybe a slight shadowing below his eyes, but absent that, he looked just the way he always did. Hard and pitiless.

  But Glenn didn’t feel hard. He didn’t feel pitiless. He felt like he deserved punishment for what he’d done.

  Who the hell was he kidding? Of course he deserved punishment. He deserved death, if the magnitude of his crimes were the only consideration here.

  It isn’t, he thought.

  Oh no? a mocking voice answered. Tell that to the dead men. Tell that to their families.

  Glenn’s stomach clenched, his throat t
ightening into a sob. He looked like a child working his way toward a good, hard cry. The sight of it was too much to bear, so he lurched away from the mirror, jerked open the bathroom door, and peered into the hallway to make sure he was alone.

  He scurried forward, locked himself in his bedroom, and listened to the throb of “Primal Scream” as it blazed toward its climax. He wished he could enjoy the music, wished he could pretend he hadn’t transformed into some horror-movie monster and ripped to shreds two innocent human beings.

  Female laughter murmured through the wall from the living room, reminding Glenn he had guests.

  No, not guests, he reminded himself. Witnesses. At least, if he didn’t get his ass in gear and play the polite host. The girls would no doubt hear about the murders. Under no circumstance could he give them the impression he was the one responsible. And the only means of preventing that was to behave as normally as possible.

  Yes, he thought. Think of it from their perspective. They hadn’t been present in the restroom. They didn’t know what had taken place. And Weezer had apparently sold them on the notion that Glenn had merely been sick.

  So don’t give them anything to be suspicious about, he told himself.

  Glenn crossed to his dresser, slid on underwear, a fresh pair of jeans, a clean black T-shirt. He turned and surveyed himself in the bureau mirror. Yes. He looked normal. Maybe a little beleaguered, but that could be explained easily enough. Yeah, ladies, it’s been a rough week. I lost several close friends at that bonfire. Let me tell you about it. Yeah, come sit by me on the couch. Or better yet, have you seen my room?

  Glenn swallowed. No way could he do that. Not tonight. For maybe the first time ever, sex was the only thing not on his mind.

  Glenn heaved a deep breath, shook out his arms to relieve some of his nervous energy and headed toward the door. Halfway there he paused and sniffed his hands. A shiver rippled through him. He could still detect the odor of blood on his skin, caked under his fingernails. He strode over to the dresser, selected a bottle of cologne, and spritzed it liberally over his fingers, his chest, even in his hair.