Horror For Good - A Charitable Anthology

by Jack Ketchum

  "Of course."

  "Do you have any idea what we do here, Mr. Lightenour?"

  Tom glanced around the walls. The Founding Fathers Foundation was housed in a converted residence, one of those old, thin two-story houses squeezed into parts of Washington like celery sticks in rancid dip. Dickson's office had once been a den, probably; it was spacious, with expensive pastel wallpaper and genuine antiques for furnishings.

  Tom hoped he'd never have to clean it. Just the chair he was sitting on was probably irreplaceable.

  He shrugged in answer to Dickson's question. "All I know is that you're one of those high-powered think tanks."

  Of course he knew a bit more than that.

  He always investigated a client before he accepted a new job. The Founding Fathers Foundation was a conservative think tank, with a mission statement that read like a Cliffs Notes version of the Pledge of Allegiance. Funded by private and corporate sponsors, it boasted an annual budget of nearly $50 million, and its dozen officers and trustees had their fingers in nearly every slice of the policy pie. The Foundation supported supply-side economics, the Monroe Doctrine, a strong national defense, and traditional American values...which it defined, regardless of how traditional they really were. Tom figured the fine folks who made up FFF had probably been involved with everything from the invasion of Iraq to the death of the public health care option. Tom's own politics—on the rare occasions when he thought about them—leaned considerably to the left of the FFF's, but he had to respect their strength. And, of course, their money.

  Suddenly a low female voice sounded behind Tom. "Oh, sorry, Dix, didn't know you had company..."

  Dickson waved a hand. "Quite all right, Anita—we're almost done here."

  Tom rose, turned—and stopped just short of gaping.

  The woman who stood in the office doorway wasn't Hollywood beautiful, but her shoulder-length, thick, light brown hair, half-lidded smile, and hip-cocked pose all smacked Tom like a bolt of erotic lightning straight to the crotch. He froze as he felt himself harden, hoping she hadn't noticed.

  No woman had ever had such an effect on him.

  She shifted slightly, the filmy material of her bright red dress hissing slightly as it slid over her thighs, and Tom felt another arc of pure sex. "Oh...you must be Mr. Lightenour," she said, letting his name slip from her tongue like drops of hard liquor.

  Tom swallowed, unsure of how to answer—or that he even could answer—when Dickson rose from behind the desk. "Mr. Lightenour was just leaving—"

  "I was hoping we might discuss some other business," she said.

  Dickson and the woman stared at each other for a moment, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. Then Dickson twitched and backed down, rustling papers as he looked away. "Fine."

  The woman gestured out of the office, and Tom followed as she led him down a short hallway to another room at the rear of the house.

  He worked to recall her from the FFF website, and remembered her on the page listing the Foundation's Board: She was Anita Curran, a Rhodes Scholar and CEO of at least one major corporation before joining FFF. In the accompanying photo she'd looked attractive, but more like a well-groomed middle-aged executive, not the most desirable woman Tom had ever met.

  She paused before an office door that had her name on it. Tom entered, then she stepped around him, silently closing blinds, turning locks, and flipping off light switches before launching herself at him.

  The miniscule part of Tom's mind not currently connected directly to his cock told him to resist, to take his money and run, to never accept another job from the Founding Fathers Foundation...but that part was quickly silenced by tongue and taste and hair and nails and the musky hot scent of her.

  It was over in minutes, leaving them both sweaty and panting. As Tom re-buttoned his shirt, he glanced at her and saw her eyes flash in the dim light, and for a moment he had the unsettling sensation that he'd just fucked an animal in heat.

  But when she told him she'd call him later, he didn't say no.

  ***

  She did call, two nights later. This time they met at an expensive hotel where the desk clerks welcomed her by name and had a room key waiting.

  It began as quickly as it had in her office, but lasted longer this time and took place in a king-sized bed. When they finally pulled apart, Tom was too drained to do more than just stare at the ceiling.

  Anita rose, used the phone to order room service, then lit a cigarette and stood naked before the fifth floor window, looking down at the lights of Washington.

  "You smoke," he said, watching her.

  "Is that a compliment or an observation?" She didn't turn, only took another drag.

  "It just surprises me."

  Tom could hear amusement in her voice. "You only live once, right?"

  "You don't seem like a conservative scholar."

  Now she did turn to look at him, and he felt a chill ripple up from the small of his back. "What do you know about the Founding Fathers Foundation?" she asked.

  "No more than what's on the website."

  She nodded, then turned back to the view and the cigarette. The lights seemed to fascinate her, and he saw the hand without the cigarette spread on the cool glass as if she could reach through and take the city. She didn't say anything else.

  ***

  Two weeks later, she gave him an address and told him to meet her there at 7 p.m.

  They'd rendezvoused a total of six times, but each meeting had consisted entirely of sex (really amazing fucking sex, Tom reminded himself) in a random hotel or her office. They never left the room, didn't enjoy a night out on the town, didn't talk much before or after. She certainly had never invited him home.

  But when Tom pulled up before the tasteful two-story house in Georgetown, he knew it was hers. Somehow that realization made him more anxious, not less.

  He parked, walked to the front door, rang the bell. Moments later he stood in Anita's large, elegant living room, hearing cloth tear as she raked her nails down his back and ran her tongue along his jaw.

  She abruptly pulled away from him, spinning to the window. Tom ignored his throbbing crotch and tried to follow her glance, but saw only the night sky over the affluent cityscape.

  "It's time," she announced, and took his hand, leading him out of the room.

  They went through the kitchen, around the island with its copper pans and chrome fixtures, to a basement door. She opened it, turned on lights, and led him downstairs. The basement looked typical—boxes, old furniture, gardening tools—except for a solid metal door wedged into one wall. Anita opened it to reveal a small, sterile room within: One wall held a bank of video monitors, there were racks of canned goods and supplies, and a cot against the third wall.

  "I'll be damned," Tom said, taking it all in, "a panic room. I've never seen one in person before."

  Anita reached around him to close the door, then stepped away from him. "I want you to watch me, Tom."

  He grinned. "Is that all?"

  Her response was nearly a physical slap. "Goddamnit, watch me."

  Silent, chastened, he nodded.

  She reached back to a shelf and brought forth a vial of pills; twisting the lid off, she poured about ten into her palm. She threw the pills into her mouth, and washed them down with a long pull from a bottle of water.

  "Anita, what the hell...?"

  "Just watch."

  Next she removed her clothing, which she carefully folded and placed on a shelf. By the time she finished, Tom could see the drugs working on her—her eyes were losing focus, her limbs moving as if she were underwater.

  She lowered herself to the cot, stretched out there, and promptly lost consciousness.

  Jesus...what is this, a suicide attempt? Christ, Anita...

  Tom was debating whether to call 911 when she quivered.

  At first he thought she must certainly be convulsing from the medication—but then he saw that somehow her bare skin seemed to be darkening. He bent cl
oser to her, breath held, and saw that it wasn't that the flesh was changing color, but that it was growing hair.

  Tom backed up so quickly that he rattled the shelving unit behind him. He stared in disbelief as she changed:

  Limbs lengthened and bent. Features changed shape and color. Thick gray-brown fur covered her. The spine curved. A tail sprouted.

  In less than thirty seconds, Tom stood over a large wolf that was twitching slightly in a sedative-induced sleep. She growled softly, Tom saw canines that were nearly as long and thick as his little finger, and he knew exactly who/what had killed the young man in the State Department.

  He turned and stumbled out the door, slamming it behind him, double-checking it even when he heard the catch of the heavy interior latch.

  But he didn't leave. He paced for a few seconds, until his heart slowed, and then he found a cracking old leather armchair and fell into it.

  Jesus, I've been fucking a wolf, he thought, and allowed himself a time for hysterical laughter. Then, when that had passed, he thought about what to do.

  And decided simply to wait.

  ***

  He dozed off for a while, but jerked awake when he heard the door opening. Adrenaline flooded his system and brought him to his feet, but before he could run, the door was pushed back, and he saw her.

  Fully human again. Partly clothed. Looking dulled, as if she was still slightly wrapped in the sedative's embrace.

  "I need coffee," she announced before heading up the stairs, leaving him to follow. He saw morning light streaming in through the kitchen windows, and realized the night had passed.

  He sat at the dinette silently while she went about the absurdly normal motions of making coffee. Finally, she brought two steaming mugs to the table, sat down across from him, took a sip, and eyed him contemplatively.

  "You stayed."

  He nodded, his throat dry, his stomach in rebellion at the thought of coffee, which he swallowed anyway.

  "I was bitten four years ago..."

  Tom remembered the website. "When you joined FFF."

  "Yes. It's kind of...let's say, a condition of being part of the Foundation—"

  "Wait—do you mean that all of you in the FFF are...?"

  "Of course. I was turned by Dickson."

  Tom tried to imagine the pudgy, balding bureaucrat as a sophisticated predator, and was surprised to find that he could.

  "The wolf," Anita said, drawing his attention back to her, "it changes you even when the moon's not full. Makes you faster, smarter—"

  "More vicious." Images of shredded limbs and flung-about organs in the young man's apartment made Tom push the coffee aside.

  "Yes," she said, and Tom wondered if her teeth weren't still longer, more pointed than they should have been. "We are more aggressive. But that's good for our work."

  "For planning wars and police actions, you mean."

  She laughed, then stroked his hand, and Tom had to stifle an urge to pull away. "God, Tom, you sound so liberal."

  "So what did he do? That kid in the State Department."

  She sighed and looked away. "He had the bad luck of walking in on a cabinet head in a...well, compromising position."

  "And that cabinet head is yours?"

  She didn't answer, just turned that glistening smile back on him.

  "So," he said, doing his best to hold her gaze, "what about me? How can you let me just walk away knowing what I know?"

  Anita rose languorously from her chair, padded around the table, and draped herself over Tom until she could whisper into his ear.

  "Darling, every wolf needs its dog."

  ***

  She was right, of course. She was always right.

  If Tom tried to tell anyone—cops, media, iReporters, another think tank—he wouldn't be believed, but he would be dead, because the wolves of the Founding Fathers Foundation had his scent now and would hunt him down.

  So he served them. He cleaned up when they tore apart an influential talk show host's assistant who was regularly blowing the blowhard. He disposed of a blood-soaked car when they attacked a street hustler who'd sold drugs to an evangelical leader.

  And he had a great deal more mind-numbing sex with Anita, the kind of sex that left him chafed and sore. Normally Tom would have done anything for that kind of sex, but his bouts with her also left him scared out of his wits. Even though she had told him she would only change on full moon nights, he knew she could strip the skin from his bones any time she wished.

  The street hustler had been killed during a new moon.

  But they also paid Tom well. It was amazing what money and sex had done to silence his conscience. He sometimes found himself embroiled in late-night arguments with himself, reasoning that he might as well be on the winner's side; or that he could take their money until he was wealthy enough to turn on them.

  Or he could beg them to turn him.

  Whenever the full moon came again, and he locked himself away in his apartment, imagining Anita roaming the streets, her smooth ash-colored fur protecting her from sight and cold, her attuned senses leading her to the prey, the remorseless kill...he wished he was with her.

  Nearly a year after his first job for FFF, he awoke the morning after a full moon to receive his latest assignment. He was sent to a house in a New Jersey suburb, where he found the mutilated remains of a woman—and a baby girl. She still wore the shreds of a pink jumper and booties.

  For the first time in his professional life, Tom vomited upon viewing the scene, then immediately cursed himself for creating a major evidence stew; one more thing to clean up. He forced himself not to wonder what anyone could have done to deserve this, or what anyone could be to commit this. He focused solely on the practicalities, and he walked through the actions like a stone man, a robot.

  A dog.

  When the job was finished, he returned to FFF and found Dickson waiting with the pay. "I trust everything went well...?"

  Tom didn't answer. He took the money, left Dickson, walked down the hall to Anita's office and threw the door open.

  She was on her cell, and looked up in irritation. "I'll have to call you back," she said, watching Tom as he closed her door and then paced before her large, neat desk.

  "Tom, what—"

  "Bite me."

  She blinked in surprise, and then laughed.

  "I saw what you—or one of you—did last night, to that woman and the baby. And I almost couldn't handle it."

  Anita leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing. "That's unfortunate, but—"

  "So turn me. Make me like you."

  She gawked for a moment, her mouth actually hanging open. Then she said, with some amusement, "You can't be serious."

  "Why not?"

  "Because," Anita said, rising from her chair, causing Tom's stomach to constrict in dread as she walked around the desk to him, "you will never be one of us."

  She started to reach for him, but Tom leapt away. "I would be if you turned me."

  Her amusement vanished, replaced with a fury that made her eyes glitter; flop sweat broke out on Tom's brow as she advanced. "What do you think I was before, Tom? Some weak-kneed left-winger with a useless fucking degree in Liberal Arts and a collection of Indigo Girls albums? Some halfwit jabbering of equality and socialism? Some naive dog who stupidly dares to dream that it can be a wolf?!"

  She backed him into a corner, and now pushed her face up to his. "If you want to know the truth, even the sex has started to get boring. I'd like your dick better if it was attached to a backbone." Anita's nose wrinkled in disgust, and Tom knew she'd smelled his fear. She turned away, didn't bother to look back as she added, "Get out. FFF is finished with you, and so am I."

  He left while he could.

  ***

  Tom had a month.

  Somehow he knew she wouldn't risk attacking him while in human shape. He wasn't some spaced-out junkie too doped to put up a fight; no, he knew she'd wait to let the wolf take him.

 
If he ran, she'd find him. There was nowhere he could hide, no one he could talk to.

  He only had one chance: To fight back.

  FFF's offices had its own security, and he knew he wouldn't be able to get near her while she was human. That was fine; he wasn't sure he could kill her while she still looked like Anita, and while he still wanted her.

  Tom searched the internet, found YouTube instructional videos on how to cast bullets, and bought the molds, ladles, and other equipment online. It took him a few tries to get it right. Tom didn't like guns—he'd never had to use one in his work—but he did own a Smith & Wesson 327 that held eight rounds, so he made eight bullets. He went into the woods and fired one as a test, to be sure it wouldn't shatter or melt. He was satisfied with the results. He had seven bullets left.

  He thought it would be enough for her.

  ***

  The night of the full moon arrived.

  Tom had been his usual careful self as he'd arranged (under a false name) to rent the isolated cabin. He couldn't afford to have his D.C. neighbors hearing gunshots, or wolf howls. Or seeing him lug a body out to his car.

  He knew she'd find him anyway.

  It was past midnight as he sat in the cabin's main room, the gun cradled in his lap, a fire blazing in the old-fashioned hearth behind him. The moon had risen several hours ago, and outside he saw pines and scrub bathed in light the color of her fur.

  Finally, he heard the small scratch at the door.

  Tom stood, holding the gun firmly in both hands, pointing it at the room's single large window. He knew she wouldn't get in through the door, but could easily leap past the glass, enduring only a few small cuts. He hoped to take her down in mid-leap, but would fire the rest of the rounds into her, just to be sure.

  The hair on Tom's arms stood on edge as he heard her howl...and then he heard the answering howls of other wolves. Of course she hadn't come alone. She'd brought the entire FFF board with her. Their kind always hunted in packs.

  Tom's knees gave way and he sagged into the chair, cursing himself for his arrogance. He'd really believed he'd meant enough to her that she'd want to deal with him alone. Of course they'd tracked his online activity, knew how much silver he'd bought, and had calculated how many bullets he had. She had maneuvered one of the others to take out the window first. Maybe she even had human assistants out there, preparing to open the door, to let them in to tear apart their dog in bites that would kill him, not change him.