WEREWOLF:
Ascension
By Greg Hair
Published by wayHUGE Media
www.wayhugemedia.com
Copyright Greg Hair 2011
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Chapter 1
The beast ascended the hill, through the small forest of trees in Iroquois Park, from the scene of its last kill. Hanging from its mouth, by the hair, was the severed head that had just moments before rested atop the body of a wife and child abuser. The creature’s thoughts, however, drifted away from the present moment to earlier that night in the life of its human veil.
The cold fire of the Jameson on the rocks gradually awoke Landon Murphy on an early Spring night. A light breeze drifted in through the open, curtainless, windows, tapping the printed pictures of LillyAnna sent via e-mail by Ryker that were splayed across the small, brown dining room table. Landon had David Gray’s Sail Away on repeat. Most of the photos were group shots of her and other people at Burghausen, but he saw only LillyAnna.
He noticed a marked progression in her demeanor as the photos were placed in order from the earliest to the most recent. The greater the distance in time from the day that he left, the more her smile broke through. She was, according to Ryker, doing well—
touch and go in the beginning, but had since adjusted. Landon hadn’t spoken to her since he left Burghausen, though she had tried to call a few times.
“I did the right thing,” he’d always say to himself, as if he were his own prosecutor and defense attorney. “She deserves better. I can’t give her what she wants or needs. Besides I’ve got—complications.”
Those complications were now sleeping in their shared bedroom. Liam and Mara had adjusted better than anyone could have anticipated, performing well in school and making new friends, even receiving invitations to sleepovers and birthday parties.
Birthday parties were okay, for Landon, but sleepovers never happened. Still, they continued to ask questions about their mother from time to time.
“She’s in Heaven,” he’d say.
“Where is Heaven?” the twins asked more often than not.
Landon hadn’t yet learned how to get on their level, usually attempting to give a metaphysical answer about other ethereal planes of existence.
“Mommy said there’s lots of fields to play in there, and a big river that flows to a giant tree,” Mara would typically say in response to Landon’s clumsy answers.
Liam was a different matter. The little red-haired boy often had night terrors that Landon had to wait out. They happened in the middle of the night, with Landon awaking to screaming, then rushing into the kids’ room to comfort his son, only to have the boy look at him as if he were looking through glass. Several minutes would pass before the child would calm to the point of going back to sleep.
“What did you dream about last night,” Landon would ask.
“Monsters,” Liam typically replied, if he answered at all. Even when the boy didn’t respond, Landon knew it was monsters. He’d never gotten all the details about what they had experienced when they were with Nicholas and Jamie. They never talked about it, and he never asked.
He did the best he could to be a good father, though that usually meant showering the twins with toys. Landon had unlimited financial resources thanks to the Senate’s money, so he used his income from Burghausen to maintain the twins’ contentment. He intrinsically knew this wasn’t right, but, well, he just didn’t have a better plan.
Then there was Jamie. Landon had been called to Andrews High School on a number of occasions due to his teenage son’s propensity for fighting. Though Jamie always claimed self-defense, Landon had to give him credit for holding back. Jamie could physically take anyone in the high school, but no one, as yet, had come up seriously injured.
Truth be told, being called in to the school was when Landon and Jamie spent the most time together. The father rarely saw his son, even on school nights. Landon had tried, in the beginning, to reach out to Jamie, offering to get a babysitter for the twins while they would do whatever the teen wanted, in the hopes of somehow forming some kind of bond. Jamie would have none of it.
“A bond?” Jamie would ask. “You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m only here because I have nowhere else to go. There were only two people in this world I had a bond with, and they’re both dead. And all of it’s your fault.” So, Landon sat at the dining room table, drinking his whiskey, which he did his best to hide from all three kids, trying to wash away his memories of, and current curiosity about, LillyAnna. He had even kept the fact that he was still drinking from Ryker, though the vampire wouldn’t know any different anyway, seeing as he was in Germany.
But God she’s beautiful, he thought. Her pixie hair; those almond-shaped eyes; that body that he held close on a cold German night months ago. The truth was, he did miss her, more than he could even convey to Ryker. Why didn’t I let her come with me?
He asked himself that question over and over again. Oh, he knew what he wanted to believe, what he wanted her to believe—that it was better for her this way.
The truth was, it was easier for him, easier to put the distance between them, than to face the feelings he had, face the pain that comes with every relationship, even those that work out. It was easier than tearing down the wall he worked so hard to build that protected not only him, but everyone else. There weren’t many roles that he played better than that of martyr.
Returning to the present time in the park, having left the twins with a babysitter, and Jamie out doing whatever Jamie did, Landon approached the lookout at the top of Iroquois park, the abuser’s head in his salivating mouth. The vantage point provided a good location to soak up the sounds and smells carried upon the air. From here he could see beyond the lights of downtown Louisville, which were miles away, to southern Indiana.
Checking to see that no cars approached, he stood on the rock wall, changed, and tossed the head into the trees below. Landon heard several small branches break from the impact of the falling debris, until it finally came to rest hundreds of feet down from where it began its decent, with a thud. He felt sorry for the park explorer that would eventually come across the head.
Suddenly, in the distance, behind him and outside the park, Landon heard two men arguing—one screaming over the other. Then a gun shot, squealing tires, and more indiscernible yelling. Jumping off the low wall, Landon transformed before hitting the ground. Down through the woods, away from the lookout, and out of the park the werewolf raced.
Stopping just yards away from Dixie Highway, still hidden within the shadows of the treeline, Landon found a man acting erratic in the middle of the road, one second trying to flag down passing motorists, the next putting his hands to his head and falling to his knees. As Landon was about to change, steal some attire from a nearby clothesline, and approach the man, a car stopped. Landon listened closer.
“What’s goin’ on?” asked the driver.
“My car,” said the hysterical man. “My son.”
“Calm down, man. I don’t understand. What happened?”
“My car was just stolen! My infant son’s in the back seat! He said I could get him out, then he just took off!”
“Did you call the police?”
“My phone’s
in the car.”
“I’ve got mine! Get in, we’ll try to follow while you call. How long ago was it?
What kind of car do you drive?”
“It’s a red Toyota,” said the panicked man, entering the passenger side of the good-Samaritan’s car. “He had a gun; there was nothing I could do. He went that way, straight ahead, down Dixie.”
Landon’s eyebrows furrowed and he was off like a shot, racing along Dixie Highway through the tree-line behind the buildings that bordered the road. He heard the car’s engine rev as it sped down the street behind him. It didn’t take long for Landon to find what he was looking for.
The red Toyota pulled off Dixie and onto a side street, heading uphill toward Waverly Hills Sanatorium. The father of the infant trailed about a minute behind. Landon followed the kidnapper into the sanatorium’s gravel lot. The man got out and ran into the abandoned building, leaving his gun in the passenger seat. Landon focused his ears on the Toyota’s young passenger and, judging from the quick breathing in the backseat, found that the boy was sleeping through the whole thing. The engine of the pursuing car quickly approached.
Even before he set his first paw inside Waverly, Landon picked up the scent of death and decay. It was everywhere, mixed with the aromas of sex, pot, and alcohol. He’d always heard the stories about the place being haunted and, while he wasn’t looking for any specters anyway, since he didn’t believe in ghosts, he admitted to himself that the dilapidated hospital was a bit on the creepy side. Even to a werewolf.
He tracked the stench of the criminal down the ground corridor to a side room, where he found the man sitting in the middle of the floor, heating up a spoon. A freakin’
heroin addict, thought Landon. Probably so doped up, he doesn’t even realize everything he’s done. Still, ignorance does not equal innocence. Justice must be served.
The red beast entered the dark room, lit only by the small flame of a lighter, as the second vehicle parked beside the stolen car. Circling the addict, Landon heard the father outside frantically open his car to check on his son. The kidnapper, filling the air with a smell of dying flesh and a lack of bathing for at least a month, suddenly looked up through his long, greasy bangs and reacted in a way Landon hadn’t expected—he began talking to the creature.
“Hey, what’s up?” the addict asked, a scented tide of rot escaping from his black-toothed grin.
The werewolf looked at him curiously, unsure how this was going to play out.
Well, this is a first.
“Hadn’t seen you in a while. You’ve changed color. Weren’t you yellow? Huh, listen to me, talking to you like you’re real. If you were, maybe I’d be scared, but, anyway, you want some?” The man’s dirty fingers held the needle toward the werewolf, a drop of the liquid drug hanging at the tip of the syringe.
Yellow? Jamie. Landon moved closer, snorting on the man.
“Wow,” he said, reclining away from Landon’s snout, “that’s some hot air my imagination’s got.” He looked down at the needle, the track marks in his arm, evident.
“The guy said this was the best he had.”
Landon almost felt sorry for him. He understood what it was like to crave the next high, or drink. The difference though, was that Landon wasn’t an addict. He had complete control. Addicts were people like this guy, bottom feeders who populated society’s dark crevices in ragged, over-sized clothes that smelled like feces and urine.
Landon was no bottom feeder. He had a home, a job, and made sure his kids were fed and clothed. Addicts scurried around in dark corners of abandoned hospitals, searching for that tiny morsel of false heaven.
No, Landon was not a bottom feeder, but he almost felt sorry for this one. Almost.
A moment later, he sent the junkie flying out a ground floor, glass-less window, landing near the distraught father.
“You! You kidnapped my son!” screamed the father, walking toward the addict, gun in hand. “You’re fucking dead!”
“Hey, let’s wait for the police. They’ll be here any second,” said the good-Samaritan.
“You hear that?” the father asked the man splayed face-down across the gravel.
“You’d better pray they get here soon.”
Landon, having emerged from the backside of the building, watched the entire scene from the safety of the woods surrounding Waverly Hills. He saw the father bend down and begin beating the addict senseless with the gun’s grip. The latter never fought back. Landon felt that the father’s rage would dole out the necessary justice.
Well, there you go LillyAnna, I’m not touching him. No blood on my hands. Hope you’re happy.
Then, coming through his sarcasm, he heard LillyAnna’s response: so you’re going to let the innocent victim ruin his own life through murder. Landon knew that if she’d been there, that’s exactly what she would’ve said. He also knew that she’d be right.
Oh, Hell, he thought, realizing he needed to do the right thing. He let out a terrifying growl, as the father stood, preparing to pull the trigger, prompting him to stop.
Both the father and the good-Samaritan stumbled backwards, closer to their respective cars. Landon watched them squint, trying to peer through the thick trees to catch a glimpse of whatever lurked in the darkness.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” said the addict, blood dripping out of every facial orifice.
“He’s just a puppy. He’ll even let you pet him. Throw ‘em a bone.” Sirens approached nearby, coming fast up the hill. Landon took off, leaving the scene for the police to clean up.
Reaching home, he snuck into the basement where he had a change of clothes stashed. Going upstairs, he paid the babysitter and sent her on her way, then sat in a recliner, thinking about Jamie showing himself, as a werewolf, to the addict at Waverly Hills.
What the hell has he been up to? Is he doing drugs? Not that it matters, since a change would reverse any damage done. I’m failing at this. I’m not made for this father stuff. I need a drink. And where the hell is that kid now, anyway?
Chapter 2
That same evening, Jamie lurked among the shadows of trees and one-story businesses, on his own kind of mission. Creeping, in human form, he followed laughter, and the screams of an animal in pain, toward a local out-of-business restaurant on Dixie Highway, where he found two young men, late-teens or early-twenties he guessed, their clothes all black with silver chains dangling from their belt loops, and a hog-tied, short-haired kitten.
The orange and white striped animal was muzzled with a scarf tied around its head, though not nearly enough to where Jamie’s heightened hearing couldn’t pick it up.
One man was doing his best to hold the cat, while the other waved a red and silver, Marlboro zippo lighter underneath it. Jamie tasted the exposed flesh on his tongue as the smell of burnt cat drifted through his nose. He heard the animal’s heart race. The crying of the tortured animal was more than he could stand.
Approaching from the darkness, Jamie kicked a can lying on the ground, making his presence known. The man with the lighter stopped, while the other continued holding the kitten. The cat struggled, its eyes nearly rolled back in its head. Jamie noticed the body of a larger cat lying off to the side, its fur also singed and its legs bent in odd directions. He deduced it was the kitten’s mother.
“You know, you have to wonder, if animals can communicate with each other, why dogs and cats have anything at all to do with us,” Jamie said, casually walking toward the men, his hands in his pockets. “I mean, sure there are some people that are good to animals, but, for me, it only takes one bad apple to ruin the whole damn tree. And there’s been more than a few bad apples fall from the human tree.”
“Kid, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the man with the lighter, “but you need to get the hell outta here.”
“Hmm, that’s one option. But, if I do that, how am I supposed to get my practice in?”
“What practice?” asked the man holding the kitten.
�
��Killing,” said Jamie. “How would you like to try getting your hands on a less defenseless animal?”
Jamie’s eyes glowed red like a neon sign as his body began contorting. He watched the men continue standing there, paralyzed. The cat writhed in its captors hands.
Jamie, his transformation complete, leaped at the man holding the kitten, the feline being dropping to the ground as its torturer flew back, propelled by the werewolf.
Feeling that one good turn deserves another, he attacked the man’s legs, breaking them, ripping the flesh away with his back claws as he flayed the upper half of the torturer with his front.
Turning around toward the man with the lighter, Jamie knew he’d be unable to do to him what he wanted in werewolf form, thus reverting back to his human shape. Since being forced out of Burghausen in January, Jamie often thought about the thin line between murder and justice that exists in the world of the werewolves and vampires. That line typically resides, he concluded, in whatever form the dispenser of justice takes. A werewolf killing in the name of justice in wolf form, was permissible. Jamie, however, was about to ignore that rule and cross the line.
With the other man still frozen in his position, and the cat, still tied, rolling and crying on the ground, Jamie, nude, approached. He noticed the lighter had fallen to the ground, and picked it up. He examined the red and white Marlboro logo painted on the silver casing. Quickly, he knocked the man to the ground, which finally jolted the torturer out of his trance, and straddled him. The man struggled to throw Jamie off, but watched as the avenger’s hand changed to form a claw. Jamie then thrust his left claw down, covering the man’s mouth, the nails entering the pavement, the man’s head now pinned to the ground, his screams falling silent.
“I see you like to work out, stay in shape,” said Jamie, commenting on the man’s strength as he attempted to free himself. “Let me ask you—can you feel the burn now?” Jamie flipped the zippo top and flicked the lighter, holding it to the man’s stomach. The smell of burning human flesh replaced that of burnt cat. Now it was the torturer’s turn to writhe on the ground, screaming, heard only by Jamie, and the cat.
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