by Tess Grant
Kitty stopped spinning when she realized she was celebrating alone. “Come on. Cheer up. I know it sucked, but we’re free.”
He didn’t reply.
“Right?” she asked. “We’re done?”
He tipped the flask up but still didn’t reply.
“Okay,” she said with more irritation than she intended. “I wanted to check on you. You seemed tired.”
He blew out an exasperated sigh. “I told you. I got a touch of some bug.”
She nodded, biting her lip. The atmosphere in the cabin still didn’t feel right, but this time she couldn’t blame it on the torch fumes. “Call if you need something. I’ll be up soon.”
He nodded.
She darted out the door, put a hand on the rail and vaulted the steps all at once. Jogging down to the tree line, she stopped and turned. Nobody stood on the porch; he usually came out to wave. From where she stood, the cabin looked abandoned.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The evening had been a strange one—on-and-off warm rain followed by a cold front. A pale mist hung about ten feet off the ground in the clear spots and down the road. Its vaporous fingers reached down to trail wetly across her shoulders. The wind was starting to freshen though, and she knew it would all blow away within an hour or two. She couldn’t see the moon, but she knew it was there. A full orange ball rising above the horizon.
Phinney had asked her to come up to the cabin tonight, and she had agreed. She hadn’t seen much of him in the preceding weeks anyway.
A fuzzy aura glowed around the cabin’s windows, the mist helping to conceal the bulk of the shack. She took the steps in two leaps, looking back to see the low-lying spots in the meadow already blown clear. Phinney met her at the door.
“Come on in,” he said, holding open the screen. He pulled it closed behind her, then shut the storm door. Kitty shifted uncertainly as the big door banged shut. It had never been closed before.
“Have a seat,” he said, waving vaguely toward the living room. The two rickety kitchen chairs sat near the window that looked out over the meadow. “I thought we’d be able to see the moon better from over there.”
Phinney puttered around in the kitchen. At least he looked better than the last time she had seen him. She went and sat down, feeling uneasy. Behind the storm door, she noticed a large Army-issue green duffle bag. Its sides slumped in; it must be about half full. She frowned at Phinney as he approached, carrying the .45.
“I was hoping we’d be able to beat these goddamn things into plowshares by now.” Phinney said with a sigh. He held the .45 out to her by the barrel, and when she didn’t take it, he waggled the butt impatiently at her. “I know you don’t like this one, but at close quarters, I think it’s the better choice.
“Better choice for what?” Kitty asked, taking the gun and resting it in her lap. A tremor of premonition ran down her back. How could I have been so stupid?
Because you wanted to be.
“I’m asking you to take care of the last wolf, Kitty.”
“The last wolf—” Her voice trailed off into nothingness.
“We both pretended that night out in the woods. Pretended it was a scratch from the scuffle, pretended it was the wolf’s blood, pretended when it closed up and healed that it had never been there at all. But we can’t pretend anymore.” He sat down and stretched out his legs, blowing out a breath. “You saw the damn thing with its jaws around my arm. You saw the blood coming out of me after it was dead, and I may have been out of it, but I watched it heal when the moonlight hit it. That wolf was supposed to be the last one and it withered up and passed its power on to another. There’s one more.”
Kitty was frozen with horror.
“It’s in me, girl. It’s not me. It’s separate and alone. But I feel it. Look.”
Phinney pulled up his denim shirtsleeve and shoved his forearm out. There was nothing on the arm, not even a scratch. Indeed, the skin of his arm appeared young and supple. No age spots, no wrinkles, no crepeiness to the skin. But Kitty saw with a growing revulsion the skin was rippling, pulsing with a feral beat that was not Phinney.
“Put it away,” she cried shoving her chair back in disgust.
He rolled down his sleeve and smiled grimly. They sat in silence as the cool eastern wind blew shreds of mist across the meadow.
“You can’t ask me to do this,” Kitty blurted. Bitter tears pricked her eyes.
“Who else am I going to ask?” Phinney said softly. “I don’t have anybody else, and I can’t do it myself. You’re strong enough to do the right thing.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not like you.”
“You say that to have an excuse. You are like me. You’re like your dad.”
Kitty searched wildly for something to say. “It’ll scar me for life.”
To her surprise, Phinney laughed out loud. “This isn’t TV, kiddo. This is the whole wide world with no childproofing. This is the chance to finally end it.” He sighed. “Otherwise, it goes on and on. I’ll infect somebody, they’ll—”
“You would never bite anybody,” she interrupted him. “You could run.” She felt tears rising thick in her throat.
Phinney sighed and fished his silver flask out of his back pocket.
“For God’s sake, Phinney, now is not the time to get drunk!”
He cocked his head and looked at her. With a small puff of laughter, he pulled the top off the flask, held it out and waved it at her. “Actually, now would be a pretty good time to get drunk. That said, have a drink.”
“I don’t need it. I don’t want it.” Kitty felt fierce hot tears cascade down her cheeks.
He leaned forward and he looked almost menacing. “I said, have a drink.”
She took the flask and put it to her lips. The liquid sloshed warm into her mouth. Incredulous, she looked at him. “Sun tea? It’s tea.”
“Has been for a long time. Not always, mind you, but for a long time now. It’s easier to run around killing werewolves and cooking up candlesticks if people think you’re a drunk.”
Phinney took it back and took a drink. Then he dug out his beat-up bandana and held it out to her. Kitty cried as Phinney gazed out the window at the meadow. Already the shadows stretched long from the edge of the woods. And they both knew that below the tops of the trees, there but unseen, hung the full moon.
“The carbine is in the duffle,” he finally said. “So are the molds, crucible, the torch. I made you plenty of bullets. They’re in there. Some silver, the maps, all that stuff. There’s a few things in there I wanted you to have, and there’s a list of the spotters in there, people who can help you and how to get hold of them.”
“Will I need it?”
“I hope not.”
Kitty hardened as they began discussing the particulars. There was always refuge in the details. They agreed she should bury the duffle near the rock where they had first met. He had even left a shovel there so she wouldn’t be burdened with carrying it as well as the duffle.
She quieted, thinking of her last question. ““What about the cabin? The bo—, the stuff in it?” she asked.
“Burn it.”
The finality of it shocked her. But it was like most of Phinney’s works, spare and economical. And why shouldn’t it be final? It was the end.
It also gave her the most chance of walking away undetected.
“Keep it simple though. Nothing explosive or anything like that.”
She nodded and looked down at her lap. There lay the gun, heavy and ugly. Hands shaking, she touched it. “You want me to use this on you?”
“You won’t be using it on me. You’ll be using it on what I turn into.”
Her carefully wrought shelter gave way before that, and there was a fresh gush of tears. “Technicality.”
“I’m ready, Kitty. I’ve had a month to get used to the idea, and I was ready anyway. I’m tired, and I miss Grace and David, too.” He paused for thirty seconds or so before he continued. “Nobody wants to say the w
ord evil anymore Kitty. Someone might laugh at us if we did. Everything’s relative, everything’s good. We barely even use the word werewolf. We call them wolves. They’re not. They’re evil, and I’m one of them.” He leaned forward and patted the hand lying on top of the gun. “Most people spend their whole lives fighting nothing but boredom. You fight evil.”
“You make me sound like some superhero.”
He smiled gently at her. “I’m making you sound like me.”
He leaned back then and there was nothing but silence. The shadows grew longer, and Phinney started to talk. He told her again of Grace and David, of Normandy. He made sure there was more to remember about him than this. And outside the moon rose above the trees, and the clock crept toward midnight.
* * *
It was fully dark now and still they sat facing each other. Kitty squirmed a little on the hard wooden chair. The movement made Phinney look at her, and he smiled. “You know, werewolves aside, knowing you has been a great joy.”
“Please don’t make me do this. You’ve helped me through the worst summer ever, and I want you around for more.”
“I can’t change it. I would if I could, but what’s done is done.”
“This is all my fault. If I had shown up….”
“Nah,” he said gently. “I was getting old and sloppy. That one who came up the back would have had me two months ago if it hadn’t been for you. I needed you to help me. Still do.”
Phinney started to twist uncomfortably in his chair. With growing horror, Kitty saw the fingernails tapping the arm of his chair begin to lengthen and grow thick and yellow. Her grip on the heavy .45 in her lap tightened instinctively. She let her gaze flick out the window and back again. Can’t let it get a jump on me. The black outside was inky and complete under the trees. The moon shone on the meadow grass turning it all soft silver. She couldn’t take the time to check her watch. They had been sitting here for a long time; midnight couldn’t be more than a minute away. She looked at his face. He stretched a little and his lips pulled back over rapidly lengthening canines.
“Phinney,” she said sharply, needing to see his eyes.
He turned his dark blue eyes to her and said softly, “Hey.”
Then he left, or something else entered—she never knew which—but his eyes grew slowly blank as if a curtain came down. They seemed to take on a feral slant and lighten to a lupine yellow. A heavy scent filled the air—a thick musky scent with rot and decay tumbling through it—and her breath didn’t make it past her gag. It was the scent of evil, and Kitty had smelled it before—on a moonlit night in June when she had seen her first werewolf, the night she had killed one herself, and the night she had saved Phinney. The rage that bubbled through her before came again. Rage at this thing nestled in Phinney, growing and making him its own.
Everything happened in lightning sequence—a row of dominoes falling toward a fate she had never dreamed. His mouth opened in a snarl, and she screamed his name. His chair flew backwards with the force of his leap toward her, and her own chair flipped as she shoved her feet into the ground.
Phinney had been right all along. When something is coming down the pike at thirty miles an hour that wants to kill you, you don’t think, you just do.
The muzzle came up, and Kitty squeezed the trigger.
When the ringing in her ears stopped, she managed to sit up. The werewolf had hit heavily just short of where she had gone down. Phinney laid there now, his face peaceful. She crawled over to him, putting her hand out to touch his arm. His skin was warm and pliable.
The flesh and bone under Kitty’s fingers contracted and her hand started to settle toward the floor. “No.” He was withering. “No!” she screamed. Her hand was sinking through the fine dust he’d become, and the grit stung her cheeks as it started to whirl.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She grabbed for handfuls of the dust, to pull it back together, to make it something real. She heard it outside then¸ over her own keening….
A wolf’s howl.
The End
After nearly ten years as a forensic anthropologist, Tess Grant semi-retired to a farmette in Michigan. She lives there with her husband, children, and a number of strange critters, none of whom are werewolves.
Blog: tessgrant.wordpress.com
Twitter: @tessgrantwrites
