Wolf Land

by Jonathan Janz

  Weezer’s voice, though still guttural, was the most human thing about him. Put her in the fucking car, he repeated.

  Glenn had glanced at the entrails. She’s…she’s…

  All over the place, Weezer supplied. Yeah, I can see that. Now get your ass moving before you end up the same way.

  And so chilling was Weezer’s wolflike growl that Glenn had complied.

  It was a hideous business. Glenn had vomited at least a half dozen times.

  Then he was placed on carpet duty while Weezer drove the girls’ car to who knew where.

  When Weezer returned, he looked pretty much human. It occurred to Glenn to ask how in the hell Weezer had gotten back to the house without the use of a car, but he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Glenn was still on the floor, the carpet wet and sudsy and stained with what looked like red wine.

  You listening? Weezer asked.

  Glenn swallowed. Nodded.

  That drive-in is old.

  Glenn had not a clue what this had to do with anything, but he nodded. It seemed the prudent course of action.

  Weezer went on. They didn’t even upgrade the projector until a couple years ago, so I’m reasonably certain they wouldn’t have invested in a state-of-the-art security system.

  When Glenn didn’t say anything, Weezer tilted his head. You know what that means, right?

  Glenn frowned.

  Moron, Weezer grunted. Glenn could see the dried blood foam crusted on Weezer’s chin.

  It means, Weezer said impatiently, that there are no security cameras there, which means it’s very likely no one saw us leave at the same time as the girls.

  Glenn listened.

  Since we arrived separately, Weezer went on, and our vehicles were in the far back of the lot, there’s a good chance no one saw us with them at all. It was already pretty dark by the time I arrived.

  Glenn nodded, realizing Weezer was right.

  So there won’t be any trouble, Weezer explained. He hunkered down next to Glenn—over Glenn.

  The only way there’ll be any trouble, Weezer said, is if you fuck up. Are you going to fuck up, Glenn?

  Glenn shook his head. Weezer’s breath smelled like spoiled hamburger.

  That’s not good enough, Weezer said, looming closer. Glenn outweighed him by at least thirty pounds, but overnight Weezer had transformed into something fearsome. What I need, Weezer said, enunciating each syllable savagely, is for you to say you won’t fuck this up.

  I won’t, Glenn whispered.

  Weezer glared at him. Blood flecks on his cheeks.

  I won’t fuck this up, Glenn said in a louder voice.

  Weezer’s lips curled. That’s good enough, I suppose. Now get this carpet clean. Anybody asks you about it, you got drunk, spilled some wine, and ended up throwing a baseball through your window.

  Glenn blinked at the absurdity of the story. Baseball, he repeated.

  You were thinking about your old pal Mike. You got the ball and the mitt out and were throwing fastballs at that tree in your front yard. You were drunk and your aim was off. Weezer shrugged. Shattered window.

  Glenn decided not to argue.

  Weezer rose, strode through the living room. But before he disappeared into the kitchen and out the side door, he stopped and said, Hey, Glenn?

  Glenn peered up at him.

  You don’t mention my name.

  Weezer went out. Before he did, however, Glenn heard the fridge open, the clinking of bottles. Weezer grabbing some beers for the road.

  After scrubbing, showering and crying some more, Glenn had crawled beneath the mountain of covers. Where he still quivered. And waited for the tapping on the door to cease.

  It didn’t.

  He’d be damned if he’d answer it.

  You’re damned anyway, a voice whispered. You’re irredeemable.

  Glenn choked back a sob.

  His body ached. The throb in his joints was nothing compared to the soul-racking guilt, but still, it hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced.

  Tap tap tap.

  Go away, Glenn pleaded.

  Tap tap tap. Louder now.

  Maybe it was the police.

  Glenn’s shivering grew more severe. His body was iced with sweat, the sheets as sodden as they’d been back when he’d discovered masturbation as a teen. Dimly, amid the roiling dread and the nausea, he realized he’d only experienced one erection since the bonfire.

  The tapping wouldn’t stop.

  Tap tap tap.

  Chest hitching, Glenn scrambled out of the tangled, wet sheets and staggered to the bedroom door. He sank against the wall, the laser blasts of pain searing his muscles, concussing his bones.

  Tap tap tap.

  Let’s get this over with, he thought.

  With an effort, he opened the door and tottered through the hallway, the carpet squishing under his bare feet. He realized his visitor was at the front door, which lent further credence to the notion it was the cops. No one used his front door. No one. A couple times there’d been breakdowns on the road, and folks had asked to use his phone, but other than that, he couldn’t recall anyone coming to the front door.

  Baseball, he reminded himself. I was playing baseball.

  Glenn shuffled through the living room.

  And dropped a bottle of wine, he thought. That’s why the carpet looks like a massacre site.

  Glenn winced. He was screwed.

  He opened the door and gaped at the librarian.

  She didn’t smile. Only took in his appearance with a comprehensive glance.

  He knew he should’ve been elated it wasn’t the cops, but somehow he couldn’t muster any gratefulness. Only desolation.

  “What do you want?” he muttered.

  She was wearing a black top that showed her arms. A black tennis skirt. Quite attractive, actually. Good muscle tone. Some curves.

  Glenn felt not the slightest stirring of sexual desire.

  The librarian had her purse slung over her shoulder and a book clutched to her chest. Like she was protecting the book. Or concealing it.

  The sunlight was burning Glenn’s eyes. “I’m not in the mood to talk,” he said. “It’s too early—”

  “It’s ten fifteen,” she said.

  Glenn dug his thumb and forefinger into his brow and rubbed. “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “Did you hear about the murders?” she said.

  Glenn studied her benign expression. No accusation there, he decided. Just interest.

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Two murders and two missing women,” the librarian explained. “They have someone in custody.”

  Oh Christ. Weezer.

  “They think it’s the same person who killed everyone at the bonfire.”

  Glenn’s mind was a drunken carousel.

  “Anyway,” she hurried on, “I think we can help each other.”

  Glenn almost laughed at the notion.

  “I know,” she said, “that you think I’m some desiccated prude. But I’m not the person you think I am.”

  Despite the anxiety choking him, despite the weariness and the guilt and the miasmal hopelessness, Glenn found a wry smile forming.

  The librarian smiled too. Joyce, he remembered. Her name was Joyce.

  “May I come in?” she asked.

  Glenn glanced at the book she grasped. He couldn’t read the title, but it was an oversize paperback.

  “Okay,” he said. He hesitated, his gaze falling on the many wine-colored stains in the carpet. “But come around to the side door.”

  Joyce sat across from him at the kitchen table. He’d positioned her near the side door and made a point of letting her know the bathroom was behind her. In the opposite direction of the living room.
The room with the gray tarp for a window.

  “I can’t offer you any food,” he said. The semicircles under his eyes were the color of Concord grapes, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in days.

  “I didn’t come here for breakfast, Glenn,” she said. She’d placed her purse on the table between them, the book between her and the purse. She didn’t know if Glenn would understand the title, but if he did, he might ask her to leave. Or worse.

  If, that was, he’d become what she suspected he’d become.

  “Do you want to hear about the murders?” she asked.

  The color drained from his face. She went on. “What about the man they caught?”

  Glenn stared at her. “They think he did it?”

  “Did what?”

  Glenn made a pained face. “You know…the bonfire. The murders last night.”

  “At the drive-in,” Joyce supplied.

  When Glenn looked at her with what might have been anguish, she said, “The bodies were found in the men’s restroom. The girls who disappeared had been at the drive-in too. At least that’s what they told some people from the campground. That they were going to the drive-in to meet a couple guys.”

  The naked terror in Glenn’s face was too much for her. She looked down at the book to spare him further embarrassment. “The authorities have someone in custody, but he might not be the one responsible for the murders last night.”

  Glenn’s eyes flitted down to his left forearm. The wounds, she saw, had healed completely.

  Just like hers.

  Joyce drew in a steadying breath, drummed her fingertips on the book. “I’ve learned some things that might help us.”

  Glenn sat back in his chair, which creaked, and covered his mouth with a hand. He said in a small voice, “I don’t see how this can be helped.”

  It was as close to an admission as she was likely to get. She stroked the spine of Lycanthropology. “I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around what happened last weekend. And what’s been happening since. My appetite is different. I’m having urges I’ve never had before.”

  He didn’t talk. Just watched.

  She leaned forward. “I’m changing, Glenn.”

  He turned in his chair, looking ready to bolt at any moment.

  “And I want you to know,” she hurried on, “that this isn’t your fault.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t have to hide it from me, Glenn.”

  He pushed to his feet, shambled toward the back hallway. She followed. He got to the bathroom first, but she got her foot wedged in the door before he could close it. He turned away from her, braced himself on the sink. She noticed he wouldn’t meet his own reflection.

  Joyce waited for him to collect himself, and while she did she let her gaze wander. There was a towel balled in the corner. It looked damp. The ivory tub was ringed with a coral-colored penumbra. She imagined blood was difficult to wash out.

  She knew the longer the silence drew out, the tougher it would be to talk. Before she could lose her nerve, she said, “I want you to understand something.”

  “Please leave,” he said. Despite the broadness of his back, the way his triceps bulged like flesh-toned hatchets, he seemed very weak stooped over the sink. Very frail.

  “I’m not leaving. Not until you listen to what I have to say.”

  He hung his head.

  “You need to know,” she said, taking a step forward, “that I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t go to the police.”

  He glanced at her in the mirror.

  “As long as you promise to listen,” she finished.

  He didn’t speak, but he didn’t look away either.

  “I know what you are,” she said.

  His eyes widened, panic flooding them.

  “Because I’m becoming the same thing,” she said.

  His lips trembled.

  “We were attacked, Glenn. It wasn’t our fault. We didn’t choose this.”

  He shivered.

  She stepped closer, riveted him with her gaze. “But we can make the most of it.”

  She placed a hand on his lower back, felt the hardness of the muscles there. “It’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”

  His pleading look, the way his face crumpled, was almost too much to take. But she forced herself to stare into his tear-filled eyes. “I’m going to keep you safe. I want to make sure you can…manage the situation.”

  He laughed without humor, a harsh, barking sound that set her flesh to crawling. “It’s beyond that now,” he said. “It’s not something…” He shook his head. “…it can’t be managed.”

  She caressed his back. Slowly. Soothingly. “Yes, it can. But we have to be smart. We have to realize that this is what we are now.”

  He said, “Have you…you know?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then how do you know—”

  “That’s one of the things I need from you,” she said, unable to keep the need from her voice.

  “What?”

  “The werewolf—”

  “Don’t say that word,” he said and twisted on the cold water.

  She reached out, twisted the water off, her body crowding his. “The werewolf is the most misunderstood of all creatures. Even those who believe in lycanthropy don’t understand the physiology, the psychology…” She let her hand cover his on the sink edge. “…the glory of the werewolf.”

  His tone was guarded, but she could hear his interest now, his hunger to know more. “But if you haven’t transformed, how do you know—”

  “I said I haven’t changed, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t changed.”

  She massaged his lower back, his hand. He didn’t resist.

  She said, “I drank my own menstruation.”

  He grimaced.

  “I’m telling you this,” she said, half-smiling, “because you need to know you’re not crazy. You’re not a monster.”

  He was quiet for so long that she worried he had shut down the conversation. Then he said, “I wasn’t in control.”

  She paused for a moment. “The drive-in.”

  He nodded.

  “That wasn’t you,” she said.

  He buried his hands in his hair, looked like he’d tear it out in clumps. “How can you say that?”

  “Would you have killed them in your normal state?”

  “Of course not!”

  “It was the change that did it. The other side of you. The shadow side.”

  “They won’t care about that.”

  “What brought it on?”

  He shook his head, pushed past her through the door. “I don’t know. The guy in the bathroom, he wouldn’t shut up. He was talking and talking and I wanted him to stop.”

  “Did he offend you?”

  His bedroom smelled like an animal den. “He didn’t deserve what happened,” Glenn muttered.

  “I need to hear about it,” she said. “I need you to tell me every detail.”

  “I can’t.”

  Noting the deplorable state of the covers, she said, “It’s okay to be scared, Glenn.”

  He turned away, but she was not to be put off. “If you can understand it, you can control it.”

  “Why are you here?” he snapped.

  “To save you.”

  He swayed a little. She reached out, steadied him with a hand.

  He broke her hold and plopped down on the bed. Joyce stepped closer so that his downcast head was at a level with her thighs. She reached out, threaded her fingers through his hair.

  “Please go,” he said in a nearly inaudible voice.

  “We need to put our minds together.” She massaged his scalp. His body temperature must be at least a hundred. Maybe a hundred and two.
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  He thrust her hand away. “Just stop. I can’t do this.”

  She peered down at his bloodshot eyes. He looked like hell.

  She nodded. “I’m here to save both of us.”

  “You haven’t transformed?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Not so you could see it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But—”

  “It’s happening, yes.” She strode over to his dresser, leaned on it. “I need help getting all the way there.”

  She heard him laugh. A hollow, wooden sound. “You want this? You’re courting this horrible thing?”

  She turned and folded her arms. “It’s what I am now. There’s no changing it.”

  His eyes darted toward the wall, in the direction of the kitchen. “Is that what that book is about? Changing?”

  She nodded. “But it’s just like life,” she said. “Books can only tell you so much.” She laughed bitterly. “Like my entire life. I’ve read everything under the sun. History, fantasy, erotica, everything. But I’ve never lived any of it. And now this…” She made a fist, knocked it against her hip. “This can’t be another case of imagining. Of living vicariously through words. I need to experience it.”

  His voice was soft, marveling. “That’s why you came to me.”

  “I believe things happen for a reason.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  “And I intend to make this experience all it can be.”

  He looked away. “Believe me, this isn’t something you want to experience.”

  “Which part?” she asked. “The changing or the killing?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do,” she said. “And you’ll tell me about it.”

  He clenched his jaw. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I’m blocked,” she said. “But you’re going to help me fix that.”

  He squinted up at her. “You’re deranged.”

  She touched his chin lightly, found herself smiling a little. “We’re going to spend some time together. I’m going to make sure you’re safe, and in return, you’re going to help me change all the way. Why should you get to have all the fun?”

  Melody spent an hour hiding in the thicket beyond the bean field. From her perspective she could see the pole barn, the farmhouse beyond it. Their cars were there, but that didn’t mean they were all home. There were two working trucks inside the pole barn, another pickup in the garage. Not to mention the junkers they sometimes got running. If they were out looking for her, they probably wouldn’t take one of their vehicles. It would arouse suspicion, creeping around at ten miles per hour, gazing into every copse of trees, cornfield and ditch in the vicinity of their property. No, her dad and brothers didn’t want to be discovered any more than she wanted to be discovered.