He pushed her hands away and croaked into a sitting position. He shook his head and spat onto the floor. “How did you get here?”
“The truck,” Amy said. “But it’s back down the road about a quarter mile. Grissom blocked the way in.”
“Who’s got the fifty cal?”
“I do.” Amy pulled the Eagle from her pocket.
“How many silver rounds left?”
Amy slid the magazine out, eyeballing a hasty count. “Half the magazine. Four.”
He looked at Lara. “Where are the wolves?”
“They scattered.” Lara turned to the open door, the breeze blowing in. “They didn’t go far.”
Gallagher rattled up the Mossberg and thrust it into Amy’s hands. “Take this and make for the truck as fast as you can. Take the dog with you.”
“What about you two?”
“Lara and I will make a stand here and kill as many of them as we can.”
“No,” Amy gritted. “We’re not doing that.”
Lara agreed. “That won’t work, John.”
“It’s you they’re after, not her.” His tone harsh, accusatory. “Amy’s fast. She can make it.”
“And what if the pack splits and some of them go for her?”
His face darkened. She was right and he hated her for it. Amy put it to rest. “Forget it. I’m not leaving. Think of something else.”
No one spoke. The dog paced near the door, unable to sit still.
“There’s gotta be something.” Amy’s frustration bubbled up. She kicked at a broken floorboard. “We have weapons. There’s three of us against five of them.”
“Six,” Gallagher said. “I counted five wolves, plus Grissom. Twice our number.”
“It’s five,” Lara corrected him. “Amy took out one of them.”
His eyes brightened on his daughter. “You did?”
Amy shrugged. No big deal.
“Good girl.” He pushed himself up. “Where is it?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE CARCASS LAY in the snow where it had died. The three of them looked down at the wet mass of blood and fur.
“Hell of a shot,” Gallagher had limped out of the shack despite their protests, slow and unsteady but determined to walk. “Score one for the visitors.”
“We’re still trailing.” Amy turned away from the gore at their feet. “Three to five.”
“Are you two done with the basketball analogy?” Lara frowned. “Because I’ll go wait over there until you are.”
The dog sniffed at the carcass warily. It snorted then withdrew, keeping clear of the dead thing. Gallagher watched the husky as it raised its snout to the air. “What we need is to even up the numbers. All the way.”
Lara knelt over the carcass, studying the glassy eyes. “How so?”
“By incinerating them. Come over here.”
He pointed down the grade. “There,” he said.
The road inclined down past a few outbuildings to where the white cargo van squatted in the snow. Lara arced an eyebrow. “Was that your ride?”
“Yup. Not a pleasant one.”
“Why didn’t you just drive away?” Amy asked.
“Grissom disabled it. But the gas tank is at three-quarters. And there’s a canister in the back.”
Amy scowled. “So it’s useless.”
“Just the opposite,” Lara said, seeing what Gallagher was hinting at. “It’s a bomb, waiting to go off.”
“You want to blow it up?”
Gallagher nodded. “We rig it to explode, get the wolves to close in and ka-boom.”
“That would even the odds,” Lara agreed.
He looked at Lara. “We keep the van between us and them and then blow it when they’re close enough.”
Amy wasn’t buying it. “What if they don’t go anywhere near it?”
“We lure ‘em close.”
“With what? Us?”
Gallagher turned back to the carcass in the snow. “These things aren’t used to losing, are they? To something fighting back.”
“No,” Lara agreed. “They’re top of the food chain.”
“Maybe we can rattle their confidence first. Confuse them.” He turned to Lara. “There’s a chainsaw in the back of the van. Can you get it?”
Lara’s skepticism was palpable, her words almost moot. “What for?”
He smiled. “We’re gonna cut the head of that thing.”
“Just give it a sharp tug. When it catches, throttle it up and start cutting.”
Lara gripped the chainsaw in one hand, the other tight on the rip cord. She looked down at the carcass. The wolf’s tongue splayed out of the open maw. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You have to,” Gallagher said. He would have gladly sawed the bastard thing up but his injured left arm was too weak to hold the chainsaw. “There’s nothing to it.”
Lara stalled. This thing wasn’t her, she knew that, but she recoiled at the thought of dismembering it. With so blunt an instrument as this.
“He’s right,” Amy said. She stood with arms folded, a hint of suspicion lingering in her gaze. “I know it’s gross but you have to be the one to do this. Cut any ties to these…things.”
The contempt dripping off Amy’s last word left Lara wondering how much the girl resented her for putting them all in this situation. This was a test. Beheading the dead wolf no more than a line in the sand. What are you, Lara Mendes? Woman or wolf? On which side does your allegiance fall?
She yanked the cord hard and the engine fired up and sputtered out. Another pull and it roared to life and Lara throttled the gas. The chainsaw roared, lethal and powerful, in her hands. Tilting it down, she bit the buzzing blade into the grey pelage and the blood flew, spewing out a fine mist across the snow like red spray paint. Amy stepped back to prevent being misted by the blood.
The action slowed as the blade sunk into the neck meat and she sawed the blade back and forth, pushing it deeper. It snagged on the bone and sputtered out. Placing her boot on the thing’s jaw, she worked the saw free and pulled the cord again. Another stab into the carcass but slow and cautious against the vertebrae to avoid another choke. The buzzing vibration numbed her hands but she kept sawing down and then the blade slipped through into the snow. The severed head of the wolf tipped over like a split pumpkin.
“You’d make a hell of a lumberjack.” Gallagher reached down, clutched the wet pelage and hoisted the wolf’s head into the air. Gore dribbled down the exposed meat and bloomed against the snow, the head twisting slowly in his grasp. “Heavy son of a bitch too.”
Lara hit the killswitch and dropped the chainsaw in the snow. Amy’s face paled to a shade of seafoam green. “Sick,” she said.
The husky usually heeled up beside Gallagher but with the gory mass in his hand, the dog kept its distance. Dogs can display a variety of facial expressions; warmth, anger, playfulness. Disgust is nigh impossible for a canine’s limited range but somehow the Siberian conveyed its revulsion with crystalline clarity.
The head plopped into the snow as they approached the van. Gallagher flipped open the small fuel door and spun the cap off. Lara threw open the rear doors. “How do you want to rig this?”
“Keep it simple,” he said. “I need some cloth or rags. Then we splash out a trail gas to a safe distance up the hill.”
Lara turned to Amy. “Toss me the backpack. Then get the canister from the back.”
Amy handed her the pack and went to the backdoors. Lara dug out a roll of gauze and unfurled it. “Will this do?”
“Perfect.”
Amy returned, loosening the cap off the red plastic fuel container. Gallagher soaked the gauze in fuel and fed one end down the van’s tank, letting the other trail down the side of the van. “Can you tell where the wolves are?”
“North of us.” Lara nodded towards the road leading out of the ghost town. “They’ll come that way.”
He looked off in that direction and then crossed to where the decapitated head l
ay upended in the snow. Nudging it with his boot, he flipped it right side up. “Trail out the gas around this thing, then lead a trail of it up the hill.”
Amy gathered up her backpack while Lara poured the gasoline over the ground, trailing out a path back up the road. When the canister ran dry she tossed it into the trees and the three of them crossed to the broken veranda of the nearest house.
Amy called the dog to her and rubbed her hands down its back. “Now what?”
“We wait.”
Amy looked up at the paling light over the tree tops as the last of the daylight faded away.
Night fell and draped all with inky pitch and then the moon rose over the treeline. The sky was clear and filled with stars. The moon burned cold in the night sky and burnished the snow around them with a pale blue glow.
The three wayfarers sat hunkered on the broken steps, shivering as the temperature dropped. Amy looked up at the riot of stars and studied the moon, how it hung there like a paper lantern in the dark. “Look at that. Full moon.”
Lara and her father glanced up but made no reply, their eyes dropping back swiftly to the road before them.
“Kinda funny, I guess.” Amy craned her neck, wondering if staring at the full moon could harm one’s eyes. “Now, of all nights. Will that affect the wolves?”
Lara looked up at the sky again. “It’s giving us plenty of light.”
“Will they howl at it?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Lara said.”These aren’t typical wolves.”
Amy blew into her hands. “I’m cold. I wish we could start a fire.”
“Try moving around. Get your blood pumping.”
Amy got up and stomped her feet. Lara watched the girl pace around and stop to stare up at that big moon and pace around again. She turned to Gallagher, who sat quiet and huddled up with his arms crossed over his knees like some gargoyle on a perch. His eyes fixed on the road outbound before them. She put a hand over his arm. He was quaking underneath. “Hey. Are you all right?”
“I feel stiff.” He raised his good hand, clenching and unclenching a fist. “Like every muscle is seizing up on me.”
It was the paralysis that was working through his limbs. It would worsen until his entire body was paralyzed in a death-like rigor that would leave only his mind free. Lara had undergone it after being attacked and remembered it as the most terrifying experience she had ever suffered. Ivan Prall had called it a baptism. She related none of this to him, only squeezing his arm and saying “You should get up and stretch.”
Gallagher watched his daughter pacing the snow and then leaned in to Lara, speaking in a hush. “How long do I have? Before this starts affecting me?”
“I don’t know. I think it effects everyone differently.”
“Then these fucking wolves had better hurry up before I keel over.” His eyes went back to the road. “How stupid is this plan?”
“It’s going to work. Don’t second guess it.”
They both watched Amy pace the ground in a circle. “All that matters now is her,” he said. “Whatever happens here, she has to get out.”
“I know.”
“Promise me, you’ll get her out of here.”
“Don’t talk like you’re saying goodbye.” She shivered and folded her arms tight around her. The tone of his voice scared her and she didn’t need that hanging over her. Not now, not with what they had to face. “It’s not fair.”
“You’re right.” Gallagher studied her profile as she kept watch. “Sometimes I forget that you got your battle to fight. I’m sorry.”
A breeze blew the snow up, kicking white pixies between them. She touched his arm again, sought out his eyes. “So am I. I never meant to put your family in danger.”
“We’re here now, we’ll finish this.” He coughed, wincing as a flash of pain shot through him. “Jesus. How bad does this get?”
“Bad.”
“I don’t know if I can deal with this.”
“You have to.” She brushed away the snow nesting on her eyelashes. “I did it. So can you.”
“I’m not so sure. You survived this, managed it. I don’t know if I’m as strong as you are.”
She thought he was pulling her leg but saw neither smirk nor wink in his eye. She leaned her head against his shoulder and meant to say something reassuring about their predicament but when she spoke, something else tripped from her lips.
“I love you, John. Whatever happens now.”
“You better.” He leaned in and kissed the crown of her head. “Cuz I love you back.”
“Heads up.” Amy stopped pacing. “They’re back.”
Lara shot to her feet. How had she missed it? The wolves slinking back without her detecting it first?
The road before them was a pale band of blue bookended by dark trees. The wolves no more than shadows without origin creeping into that open sea of blue haze.
Gallagher rose and fought to keep his balance. All three watched the lobos advance. They had divvied up the weapons. Amy refused to take the pump action but Gallagher insisted. It packed a punch and his hands were shaky. He took the smaller caliber service issue and Lara wielded the canon. The husky spanned the road before them, back and forth with its tail slung low.
Amy glanced quickly at the other two. “Do they see us?”
“Yes.”
“Amy, over here.” Gallagher motioned to a spot beside him. Amy planted herself behind them. He swapped the Glock to his numbed hand and dug into a pocket for the lighter ensconced there. Their collective gaze fixed onto the wolves, waiting to see what they would do.
The pack trotted near the dead vehicle and the lead animal halted and the others heeled. Their snouts dropped to the snow in unison, tails lowering as their noses picked out the unnerving smell near the van.
The severed head stained the snow and the wolves approached it cautiously, circling it with their noses slung low. They closed in on it and prodded it with their snouts and backed off in a start and circled round. One lobo shot its head skyward and throttled up a mournful howl to the moon. The pack howled up after it until the sky reverberated with their baleful cries.
Gallagher dropped to one knee, the disposable lighter in hand. Stretching out before them, invisible in the snow, lay the trail of gasoline snaking back to the vehicle.
“Fuck you pooch,” he said and flicked the lighter to the fuel.
The flames whooshed up and fled down the road in an arrow of fire, zigzagging towards the pack of monsters. The wolves stopped howling and veered backwards. Any animal, even unnatural beasts such as these, instinctively fear the flame.
The fire snaked down the snow in a headlong rush as it closed the distance. Then it sputtered out. The flames roiled up less than twenty paces from their target and winked out in a hiss.
As quick as it had started, it vanished. Their plan evaporated the instant the flame died.
“Oh God.”
The wolves charged. A rampage of snarls and rage. Three weapons came up like a firing squad at an execution. The crack of the hammers was deafening and gunsmoke filled the air.
The wolves scattered, veering off the main road to the shadows but still they came on. A hellish noise of popping teeth as they rushed forward, invisible in the darkness. Booming towards them on both sides.
Gallagher barked at them to move back. “Get inside. Now!”
They careened up the tilting veranda of the desolate house, retreating to the door when the first wolf sprang. It shot up over the railing, splintering the balusters. Its jaws sprang open as it hurtled towards Amy. Lara and Gallagher turned and fired and the thing bucked backwards and skittered for cover but already the others were charging in.
They slammed the door shut, shot the bolt through. Something hammered into it from the other side and the bolt held but the top hinge plate tore from its desiccated casing. A massive and foul snout shot through the gap, the snapping teeth wet in the pale light. Gallagher jammed the pistol barrel under the thing
’s jaw and fired. Blood geysered up out of the nose and the snout withdrew.
The east window exploded in a spray of glass and splintered muntin, another wolf bulking the frame as it dove inwards. Amy pivoted on one heel with the Mossberg leveled and blasted a hole in the damned thing. The kick knocked her back but she recovered, racked the slide and fired again. The monster retreated. Lara pushed over a dusty hutch to cover the breached window. It tilted forward as another of the lobos tried the window, forcing its way in and Lara fired at it. Blood sprayed across the sash.
The door bucked again, Gallagher shouldered it back. The west window exploded as another wolf sought entry. Splinters of wood rained down from above. Gallagher looked up to see cracks in the rafters as something traversed the decayed roof over their heads.
Another blow against the door jostled him back and he all but tripped over the chainsaw left on the floor. He blinked at the tool. Blunt and close range but probably more effective than the nine millimeter in his hand.
He cursed, looking for a way out but there wasn’t one. How long could they hold them off in this tinderbox shell? Three doomed piggies with the wolf blowing at the door and their ammunition going fast. And out there, at the bottom of the hill, lay the trap they had abandoned, rigged but yet to be tripped.
There is a way out. Simply a question of how badly you want it?
He snatched up the chainsaw, flipped the toggle and yanked the cord. He called his daughter to him and she backed towards him, the shotgun trained on the window. “Amy, bolt this door after I go, Understand?”
She saw his hand draw back the bolt on the lock. “What are you doing? You can’t go out there!”
“I’m gonna buy us a little time. Just lock this after me!”
“Are you crazy? No.”
“We can’t hold them off much longer.” He squeezed her arm. “Trust me. Okay?”
Amy shook her head, refusing to cooperate. He pulled her close and kissed her brow. A roar at the window broke the spell as another lobo fought its way inside. Amy swung the barrel up and blasted it full in the face.
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 52
