“Fats, if he attacks you, move over to my side of the bars. If you can maneuver him near me, I can lend a hand through the bars.”
Fats was busy tying two sticks together into a cross. When he finished he held it up and showed me. When he showed it to Turner, the man just let out a guttural growl. It didn’t sound human at all.
“Be careful, Fats.”
“Sure, Griff, I’m a big boy.”
Time passed. No one came to our cell to give us food or water or even to taunt us. It just got darker outside the bars of our cells but the full moon gave some illumination.
As night became complete outside, I noticed a peculiar change in Turner. His appearance grew distinctly feral; there was a cunning glint in his eyes, a vicious and almost animal-like appearance to his features and posture. The mere five-o’clock shadow that had been on his face hours before now seemed to have grown into a dark matting of…fur?
Fats noticed it too, said, “I don’t like this. His face, his hands, he didn’t have all that hair when Willard put him in here with us, did he, Griff?”
I didn’t know what to say. I barely believed the evidence that my own eyes were showing me. It was uncanny, but there was some kind of transformation going on!
I was glad to see Turner was still securely bound, for if he ever got loose I wasn’t sure Fats could handle him so easily now. Especially if he was in that manic animalistic state where he felt no pain, knew no reason, and had the massive strength of the insane.
“He’s struggling at his bounds,” I warned my partner.
Fats nodded, he’d armed himself with a table leg. “He’ll get loose soon. When he does, I’ll be ready for him.”
I wasn’t so sure.
Another hour passed and darkness covered the sky outside our tiny window. A full moon shone partly through thick black clouds that raced across the sky caught on howling winds. It would have been a spooky night even if Fats hadn’t been locked in a cell with a criminally insane homicidal maniac who thought he was a werewolf.
I noticed the change in Turner’s physical appearance had now become incredible and profound. He hardly looked human at all any more. Fats and I were both astonished by this transformation and watched intently and with fear as it progressed.
Time passed. It was freaking us out to view Turner’s transformation. Neither of us could conceive of such a thing happening to a man. It wasn’t natural at all. And we knew it wasn’t any trick or parlor magic. This was real and it scared us. And it had me worrying about Fats. Turner now actually looked like some uncanny mixture of man and wolf, some type of pre-human feral man at his most wild and vicious preparing to strike death at any moment.
“Damndest thing I ever seen, Griff,” Fats said and I could hear the fear in his voice now for the first time. He was watching Turner intently; waiting for the attack we both knew would come soon. “He’s turning into a monster right before our eyes!”
I checked my watch. “It’s almost midnight, Fats.”
“Yeah,” he gulped, “they say the evil forces are at their height at midnight.”
“Evil forces, my ass! Come on, Fats, snap out of it, he’s just a freako mental case! Once Landis finds we’re overdue, the boys will be down here and get us out. Then we’ll put Willard and all his nut house psychos away forever. We just gotta get through the night.”
“Yeah, easier said than done,” Fats said.
I wanted to say something to calm him down but I needed to calm myself down first. My bravado of a moment before melted away when I took another look at Turner. There was something about him that was vicious, evil and hungry and it was showing boldly now. Unafraid. Almost taunting Fats and I. When he looked at me I knew real fear and, God help me, I was glad it was Fats in that cell with him and not me!
Suddenly Turner let loose with a heart-rending howl that seemed to break the night apart as he easily ripped apart all his bonds and was now free. With one swift jump he was upon my partner and had his hands at Fat’s throat.
I yelled to warn Fats but Turner was on him so quickly I knew he was in a fight for his life.
Fat’s tried to club the madman off him with the table-leg but Turner, the wolf-thing had apparent superhuman strength. He easily pulled the club out of Fats’ hand, tossed it away, and was at my partner just as furious as before.
Fats screamed, sheer terror now as he looked into Turner’s cold yellow eyes and noticed the long yellow fangs in his mouth that had once been teeth.
“Hold on, Fats! Fight him off! You can do it!” I shouted, enraged that I could not get in there and help my partner and friend, terrified for his life, frustrated that all I could do was watch. Watch a battle that I feared he would lose.
I tried to stretch my arms through the bars in an effort to hit Turner from behind, but he was too far from my side of the cell for me to reach him.
“Move him closer to me, Fats,” I barked.
Fats, wide eyes white and obviously in the fight of his life shouted back, “Damn, Griff, this bastard is strong! I can’t move him! He’s moving me!”
So it went: the were-wolf—I could hardly think of him as the human being Elijah Turner any longer—held Fats up against the cell bars opposite my cell and was pounding and tearing at him mercilessly. I was unable to help, reduced to a terrified spectator. I didn’t like that at all. I watched in rage as crimson sprays of blood landed on the wall and flew through the air with each punch and tear Fats received. It was terrible. Fats would literally be beaten to death and torn apart before my very eyes if something wasn’t done to save him soon.
“Fats!” I shouted.
There was no answer.
I could see my partner was still standing, still trying to defend himself, but it could not last. He was taking a massive amount of abuse and pain. I saw his face and he was terrified, almost transfixed as he looked into the furry face of Elijah Turner and saw only heartless feral yellow eyes, fangs, claws, wet with his own red blood.
Finally I had an idea. I could see that Fats was mortally terrified. If only I could use that fear to get that fat bastard mad—mad as hell! madder than hell!—then he might fight back!
“Fats! Fats!” I barked. “You gonna let a furry freak like that hit you without giving him a pounding back? What are you, a big pussy? You gonna just lay down and let this mental skell beat the crap outta you? Come on, man, fight back! Kick his hairy ass! Make a fist damn it! Make a fist and pound it into his face and never stop pounding!”
The werewolf pounded Fats’ head. With each blow Fats took he still hung in there somehow. He was taking terrific punishment but Fats had the hardest damn head I’ve ever seen. Usually that’s a handicap to a copper but in this case it was just what the doctor ordered.
I wondered what the hell he was doing. Why was he taking such a beating and not fighting back?
“Fats?” I barked.
“I’m okay. Bastard’s getting me real pissed off, you know what I mean?”
“I hope so.”
“Real pissed off, Griff!”
Then I saw my partner make a fist and bring it up in a pounding blow to the side of Turner’s head. It was a blasting blow to the ear and Turner let out a loud yelp. The terror left Fats’ face now. It was replaced by a rage and anger I had never seen him evidence before. His rage grew and mirrored the rage of the werewolf, and soon grew greater than that of the werewolf.
“My old man beat me, Griff! When I was a kid! He beat me bad, damnit! I ever tell you?”
He had not.
“It wasn’t pretty!”
“Fats! Defend yourself, damnit!”
“I never fought back!”
I saw him raise his fist. It was a massive hammer; all muscle, sinew and bone.
Then he shouted, “Not till now. I’m fighting back now!”
Then Sergeant Herman Stubbs, massively pissed off and in a truly nasty frame of mind, let loose with a tremendous pile driver right into the face of the werewolf. Turner’s head shot back, s
hook. Turner growled in pain, but before he could do more, Fats let loose with a constant stream of pounding head shots into the monster. It was a beating that broke bone and ripped sinew. It tore flesh and caused streams of blood. This time the blood was Turner’s, the werewolf was in trouble and Fats just came on stronger with each attack. Fats never stopped, never relented. Both man and wolf were now covered in gore, bleeding form dozens of gashes and bites; both locked in a death duel that only one could survive.
“That’s it, Damnit!” I encouraged.
Fats was boxing the creature now, his massive fists smashing into Turner’s face, into his head and breaking it apart. Turner—full of werewolf animal power—kept coming, but the tide of battle had turned. The animal ferocity in Turner had for once been met and overcome by the human anger in Fats. Human anger and pain that Fats was drawing on to make him win this battle. And Fats’ well ran damn deep. Fats kept fighting, pounding away, bashing the werewolf’s head against the metal bars of his cell, choking the life out of the creature, and finally forcing the battle over to the bars at my cell.
Now I saw the face of Turner up close, a mass of gore and broken tissue. I’d seen faces in highway head-on crashes that looked better. The feral ferocity in the were-wolf’s eyes was somehow dissipated now, rather than rage I saw fear. The fear of a cornered animal, a terrified beast hunted by a master huntsmen who would never give up and never loose the fight.
Turner growled like the ferocious beast he was but Fats only fought harder.
Then Fats growled back and his sounds even terrified me.
The two clenched once again, Fats pounding away at the flesh of Turner’s body. Fur went flying in patches. They were trying to tear each other apart. The werewolf used his claws to tear and rip Fats’ flesh. My fat partner had plenty of padding but was tore up bad. Now shorn of fear and righteous with rage he just reached out, grabbed the were-wolf’s clawed paw and snapped it like a twig. I heard the bone break and then a feral canine yelp of pain.
Fats had the werewolf up against the bars of my cell now. Finally Turner was in range and I had my chance. I quickly wrapped my arm around the creature’s furry neck and squeezed tighter and tighter as Fats pounded away at him. Turner was caught now and we were not letting him escape. I squeezed harder, tighter; crushing the air out of his lungs as Fats pounded him mercilessly. After a couple of minutes of this relentless beating I could tell he was weakening. A few minutes more and the thing was gasping for breath. Then the struggle suddenly ceased. Turner’s lifeless body fell to the cell floor dead.
I shook my head and looked up at my partner. He was a gore-covered mess.
“You okay, Fats?”
“I think so, Griff. I look a mess but I figure it must look worse than it actually is if I’m still alive and able to stand up on my own.”
I nodded glad he was just alive, realizing now that Zelda had been right. I was shocked and confused by what had happened. Had it actually happened? Already Turner’s body had transformed back, loosing the fur and werewolf appearance.
Fats smiled as if he had been reading my mind. “Damn, no way we can tell the truth on this one, Griff.”
It wasn’t until morning that Captain Landis and a brace of harness bulls came to unlock our cells and let us out.
“Sure glad to see you and the boys, Cap,” Fats said as Landis helped him over to where Doc Carten began to work on him.
Doc Carten took one look at Fats, said, “What the hell happened to you?”
Fats just smiled, said, “I’ll put it all in my report to the Captain.”
“So how you find us, Cap?” I asked.
“When you and Stubbs didn’t report in,” Landis said, “I figured you’d got yourself into another mess. Willard gave us a bit of trouble but we got him to talk and we got his staff of psychos all under wraps. He had a nice scam going here, using the criminally insane to pull jobs, having them kill anyone who gave him a problem. Ronald Meyer was going to tell his father what was going on here, so Willard used one of the patients to kill him.”
“That was Elijah Turner. Willard eventually freaked out about Turner,” I said. “he’d crossed the line, he believed Turner was a real werewolf.”
“Yeah, Griff, the evil forces got him too,” Fats added.
Landis looked at Fats. Doc Carten had him all bandaged up now. Then Landis pointed to the lump on the floor in Fats’ cell.
“What’s that?” Landis asked, trying to distinguish the mass of flesh and finally realizing with disgust that it was a man’s body.
“All that’s left of Elijah Turner. Homicidal mental patient. He suffered from some kind of personality disorder,” I said. “I don’t rightly know what it’s called but it’s in the medical books. He killed Meyer. He’s the man Willard used to kill people who gave him problems. Turner thought he was a werewolf. So did Willard. Willard put him in the cell here with Fats. The two had a terrible fight, and well, Fats got the better of him.”
Landis nodded, “Willard should have known better, he must have really been off his nut. Anyone can see the guy wasn’t any werewolf, what’s left of his face, looks like he barely even shaved yet.”
I smiled. Fats didn’t say a word.
Landis grunted skeptically and walked away. “Okay, you guys, why don’t you go get cleaned up and take a couple of days. I want your reports by Friday.”
“Sure, Cap,” I said.
“Absolutely, Cap,” Fats added.
Then Fats and I left to get our story straight.
The Werewolf Megapack Page 67
