Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3

by McGregor, Tim

  Amy looked at her. “Does anyone know you're here?”

  Tasha shook her head and Griffin ceased pacing the floor. No one on the outside knew where they were, no one would come looking for them. The same was true for Amy and Lara.

  “We're on our own.” Amy turned back to Lara and said no more.

  Griffin tried to swallow the queasy panic rising up his gullet. He watched the girl minister to the unconscious woman. She seemed almost glib about their predicament, held prisoner at the hands of these weirdo Amish people after their friend was ripped open by a monster. It was almost laughable. “What's wrong with you? We were attacked by a monster, an honest-to-God werewolf and you act like nothing happened. Where did that thing come from? And why were you after it?”

  “I don't know anything,” she said without looking back. “Leave me alone.”

  Tasha countered, “Someone close to you was killed by one of those things.”

  That rattled Amy but she fought hard not to let it show. She had forgotten what Tasha claimed to be. “How do you know that?”

  “There's someone around you. They keep their distance so I can't see them clearly. A man? He watches over you.” Tasha nodded at the woman on the floor. “Over her too.”

  Griffin softened his tone. “Who is it, Amy?”

  Amy brushed the hair from Lara's face and then looked at her hand. Blood dotted her fingertips. “My dad.”

  “He was killed by one of those things?”

  Amy felt no compunction to give up her secrets, not to these people, but what was the point now? “We were attacked by a pack of them. Dad set off an explosion, killed them all. Or so we thought. Lara and I survived. He didn’t.”

  Tasha's gaze softened. “I'm sorry.”

  “How did it start?” Griffin asked.

  They knew the worst of it already. Almost the worst of it, she reminded herself as she listened to Lara's breathing. “Lara and my dad worked together. They were cops. They were tracking down this psycho guy who turned out to be a werewolf.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Portland,” Amy said.

  Griffin inched closer, eager for the story. “Did they catch him? The werewolf guy?”

  Amy nodded. “They killed him.”

  “And no one else knew about it?” Griffin shot an incredulous look at Tasha. “They didn't tell anyone about confronting an actual werewolf?”

  “They had their reasons,” Amy shrugged.

  Tasha wiped the blood from her hands. “Is that when you lost your dad?”

  “No. That first encounter led them to a second suspect. Another lycanthrope but this guy was worse. Their investigation led us here, to that burned-out town we were at yesterday. That's where it happened.”

  Tasha nodded her head. “That would explain why that place gave me the creeps. So much death there.”

  “Did you run into these people?” Griffin gestured at the village outside the stone walls. “These weirdo Mennonites or whatever they are?”

  “No. I'd never heard of them until yesterday.”

  “They know what's going on,” he said. “The way those dudes in black went after the wolf with those spears? Like they’d done it before.”

  The injured cameraman lay as still as stone on the floor. Tasha pressed her fingers to his throat just to make sure he still had a pulse. “Amy, is the story true?”

  “What story?”

  “That anyone bitten by a werewolf is cursed to become one as well?”

  Amy narrowed her gaze, looking down at the wounded man. “Yes.”

  Griffin shot up and immediately backed away. “Holy shit,” he said, and started pounding on the door again.

  ~

  Silas stood outside his brother’s bedroom listening to his father pray. His cheeks burned in shame because he could not join him in beseeching the Almighty to save Jacob’s life. It was all Silas could do to stay on his feet and keep from collapsing into a weeping wreck of misery at his brother's bedside. Jacob Hostetler had been torn and rent badly by the beast and his flesh was ashen from the loss of so much blood. Silas kept coming back to one central tenet of life under his father's roof. He was the oldest, almost a man now, and it was his responsibility to watch over and protect his younger sibling. And in this small, simple task, he had failed. Watching his mother dip a cloth into a basin of water to clean the awful wounds, he knew that his brother would not survive such a savage mauling. Who would?

  Jacob would die and the fault of that sin would be strung around Silas neck for the rest of his life and beyond that, unto the time after death when he would be judged by God and found wanting.

  He watched his mother return the cloth to the chipped basin and saw the water foul pink with blood. Her raw calloused hands trembled as she did this but she did not cry or wail. She was trying to save her son's life and there was no time for weeping. Silas blinked with glassy eyes at her strength but remembered that she had been here before. She had tried, in vain, to save her other children who had been mortally torn in accidents or misadventure. How many children had she sat vigil at their deathbed? Two so far. Jacob would be the third. Silas wanted to pray that this be the last but he could not even pray for that. Damnation was where he was bound, of that there could be little doubt.

  His father ended the prayer then rose stiffly to his feet. Taking up the basin of soiled water, he turned to look at Silas lingering outside the door. A moment played out where neither father nor son moved, then his father looked up and said “Come with me.”

  They went downstairs, their boots creaking the wooden steps and his father pushed open the back door and flung the water into the grass. He held the chipped bowl out to Silas. “Rinse that, then fill it.”

  Silas took it to the sink and worked the handpump until cold water sputtered and gushed. “I'm sorry, father. I should have prayed with you but I couldn't.”

  “You're still in shock,” his father said. “It will pass. Then you can pray for your brother.”

  The water surged from the spout and he rinsed the last of his brother's blood from the ceramic basin. “This is my fault. I should have been watching over him when that thing came.”

  “Don't martyr yourself. How could you have known that the beast was coming?” His father shook his head in dejection. “A wolf. After all this time.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  His father was a tall man, taller than most in the village, but he seemed to have lost an inch or two. His shoulders drooped and his head hung low enough for his beard to scratch at his shirt. “I don't know. It came with those outsiders. They brought evil into our town. They must be in league with the beast.”

  “But they were trying to kill it.”

  His father leaned against the door jamb, looking out at the night. He simply grunted, a response that meant he wanted to talk no further. Silas set the basin down, wavering over what he wanted to say. He was not raised to disagree with his elders. “I don't think they were in league with the wolf.”

  His father turned his head sharply. “The English are wicked and without faith. The Bishop has declared the outsiders to be consorts to the beast. Don't question his judgment, Silas.”

  Silas bit his lip. He was treading thin ice but he couldn't stop going over the events of the night in his mind. The monstrous wolf charging at him. Being shoved out of the way by the girl and how she put herself between him and the monster. “That girl saved my life. She put herself in harm's way to do so. How can she be evil?”

  His father marched on him smartly and, for a moment, Silas thought the man was going to strike him. “The shock you experienced tonight has rattled your brains, son. It's not for you to question the Bishop's wisdom. Flush the girl from your thoughts and never speak of her again. Her evil has already tainted you.” His father took the basin of clean water and wagged his chin at the open door. “Go help the watchmen clean the filth from the square. Make yourself useful to someone, at least.”

  The night air was warm, a
soft breeze blowing in from the hemlocks to the west. Silas ventured into the square where an enormous bonfire rippled and cracked, its sparks lifting like sprites into the night air before winking out like snuffed candles. The Bishop's men had stoked the flames into a massive inferno and were just now feeding the butchered pieces of the wolf into the flames. The broken limbs dripped gore onto the ground as the men threw the pieces into the fire where they hissed and sizzled. It would take most of the night to burn the remains and even then, some of the bone matter would persist. These fragments would be raked up and pulverized with a mallet into powder. In the morning, the ashes would be swept up and buried beyond the protective walls of the village.

  None of the men spoke as Silas came forward to help but they all regarded him as he reached down and lifted out a bloodied mass of ribcage. He carried it to the fire, holding it away from himself to keep the gore from dribbling onto his boots.

  When he came back for more, one of the black guard handed him a spade and together they dug into the soil. Any patch of earth corrupted by the blood of the slain wolf was to be dug out and carried away. It was the only means to sanctify the ground.

  The watchman nodded at him and said “Be sure to scour your hands with lye after this, Silas. You don't want this filth to stay on you.”

  Silas looked down at the wreckage of the monster. He nudged the carcass with his spade. “Where is the thing's head? Did you burn it separately?”

  “No,” said the other man. “The Bishop took it.”

  24

  COME MORNING, JACOB'S CONDITION had worsened. Rising before the cock crowed, Silas crept into his brother's room to pray. “Vater unser im Himmel,” he whispered, making it through one pass of the devotional before leaning in to see if his brother had improved at all over the night. Jacob's flesh was cold to the touch and Silas could detect no breath issuing from his blue lips. Panicking, he pressed his ear to his brother's chest and detected a faint heartbeat but it was slow, like a poorly wound watch grinding out its final rotations.

  Jacob's room was the coldest in the house and even in late spring, the damp chill crept into the room to numb its occupant. Jacob needed warmth and he needed to be moved out of this room immediately. Silas tiptoed down to the kitchen and fed kindling into the embers of the woodstove until the fire stoked anew. Gathering the pallet from the shed, he snapped the legs upright and set the cot near the stove. Then he stole back upstairs and lifted his brother into his arms to carry him downstairs to the warmth of the woodstove. Jacob weighed nothing in his arms, as if the lad had shed half of his weight during his cold sweat. He fumbled through another hasty prayer as he settled the boy onto the pallet and buried him under quilts that his mother and sister had stitched.

  The boy moaned, a low and sustained hum that unnerved Silas to his core. He bent close to his brother's ear and repeated his name in an effort to wake the lad but Jacob remained limp and cold as a ripe carcass. Jacob's eyes had yet to open since the attack and Silas reached up with shaky fingers and thumbed open his brother's eyelids. There was something wrong with his brother's eyes, an unnatural glow emanated around the black pupils. Amber in color and eerie beyond reckoning. Silas bent his head and prayed a third time.

  Morning came and the family fussed over the boy and then everyone carried on with their duties, his mother and aunt scurrying around the sickbed as they put breakfast on the table. An hour later, there was a knock on the back door and Silas answered it to find the tall figure of the Bishop darkening their doorstep.

  “Good morning, lad,” said the Bishop, ducking his great height under the lintel. His dark eyes swept the room. “How is your brother?”

  “Not well, sir. He's still unconscious.”

  The Bishop clapped his big hand over Silas's shoulder and nodded gravely, as if this was to be expected. “Keep your spirits up, lad. Faith and a close watch is what's needed now.”

  Father shooed his son out of the way and mother beseeched the elder to take some tea. The Bishop thanked her and turned his attention to the pallet near the woodstove. He leaned over the still figure of Jacob and narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. “How bad are his wounds?”

  “They are severe,” said Herr Hostetler. “The teeth marks are deep. I don't know if he'll ever regain use of his left arm.”

  “I see. Why did you bring him down into the kitchen?”

  Father and mother both turned to their eldest boy and Silas cleared his throat. “I was afraid he would freeze to death. He's still cold to the touch.”

  Silas turned back the quilts and raised his brother's arm for the Bishop to see for himself but the elder made no move to verify the boy’s claim, refusing to touch the stricken boy. “Very well,” said the Bishop.

  “There's something else, sir.” Silas thumbed back the lid of Jacob's left eye. “There's something wrong with his eyes.”

  The Bishop removed his hat and clutched it in both hands as he craned over the pallet to get a better look. Still he would not touch the boy. “Pray for him.”

  “Yes sir.” Silas nodded. He wanted to ask about the Englishers but one glimpse at the Bishop's stern eyes stilled his tongue. The church elder was an older man, older than his father but he emanated an intense zeal that Silas found difficult to face. One simply listened and obeyed the man.

  The Bishop straightened up. “Silas, will you keep me informed of your brother's condition. Twice a day. Once in the morning and again in the evening. Will you do that?”

  Silas said he would and the Bishop took his father's arm and the men swept into the parlor to talk privately. While his mother bent to her prayers, Silas stole away, stepping around every creaky floorboard, to the door of the parlor and listened.

  “How many souls did we lose last night?” his father's asked.

  “Three,” replied the Bishop. “Colm Burkholder. Hiram's eldest boy, Matthew, and the younger Pauline. All murdered by the beast.”

  “My God. And how many injured?”

  “Six, including your boy. Three of them gravely. I fear they won't last to see sundown. The other three may survive. But all of them are stricken like your son. Unconscious and unresponsive.”

  “Six? There must be something to be done to help them.”

  “You know there isn't,” the Bishop said. “It's been a long time but you remember what happens when the wolf comes. We pray for mercy. Or expediency.”

  Silas heard his father curse abruptly and that surprised him. No one cursed around the elder but the Bishop let it go. A moment passed when neither man spoke. Silas thought he heard his father sob but he couldn't be sure. He had never seen nor heard his father weep.

  “We have to be strong now,” the Bishop said. “And prepare for the worst. Evil has slithered its way into our village and it will fester and grow if we don't contain it.”

  “How did it get past the barricade?”

  “I don't know yet. Keisler thinks the fence may have fallen in some spot, the hex seals broken. Or someone broke the seal, allowing the wolf to get in.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” asked his father.

  “I don't know. But we must keep vigil if someone within our community has fallen astray.”

  “And what of the outsiders? Where are they now?”

  “The keep.”

  “You have to let them go,” said his father. “They don't belong here. What happens if the English police come looking for them.”

  “I need some answers from them first.”

  “Of course.”

  The sound of the chairs scraping against the floor signaled that the men had risen. Silas tiptoed away and silently scampered down the hall.

  ~

  Lara was cold to the touch. She hadn't stirred at all since the attack and, to all appearances, seemed dead. Amy had to press her fingertips against the woman's wrist to find a pulse. It was was faint and sluggish. She looked over the stone floor of their prison for something to cover Lara with to keep her warm in this dank room but there was nothing.
A shred of burlap sack so rotted that it fell apart in her hand when she tried to peel it from the cobblestone.

  “Oh God—”

  Tasha's voice broke. Sitting next to her injured friend, Tasha recoiled from Jay as if she'd been stung by something.

  “What is it?”

  “Something cracked,” Tasha sputtered. “Inside him.”

  Amy crossed the floor to her. “Cracked?”

  “I had my hand on his chest, trying to feel his heartbeat, when something moved under his skin. Like a rib had snapped or something.”

  Griffin sat up. “Maybe he broke a bone and we didn't notice it earlier?”

  “No,” Tasha said. “It was like something was inside him.”

  Amy placed her palm flat over the man's chest but couldn't feel anything out of place. She peeled back one of Jay's eyelids but his pupils had rolled back in his head, revealing only an eerie pan of white. He jerked suddenly as if prodded with something, startling the others.

  “Is he dying?”

  “I don't know.”

  Amy shushed the other two and felt for his pulse. Another sound came, a loud crack like a bone snapping. Jay flinched, a low moan leaking out of him.

  “Holy shit.” Griffin backed away quickly. “He's changing.”

  Tasha sought Amy’s eyes, fear bubbling up fast. “Is he?”

  “No.” Amy pressed her fingers against Jay's throat and felt his pulse. It was slow and he became still again. “He's not changing.”

  “But he will,” Griffin spat. “What do we do when he wolfs out?”

  Amy didn't know. Lara had never spoken much about the transformation or how it works. She knew the coma was part of it. She had sat vigil at Lara's hospital bed as Lara remained unconscious for three days. But was that true of everyone who was infected? She remembered Lara referring to it as a cocoon stage and that everyone experienced it differently. If Jay's chrysalis stage was shorter, then three of them would be locked up with a monster.