Grinning Cracks

by K W Taylor

  Mordana chuckled to himself. Meal ticket, he thought. Meal ticket indeed.

  Walter felt the familiar itch in his lungs signaling the need to blacken them. He drifted to the garden, leaned against a pillar, and stuck a cigarette between his lips.

  “Need a light?”

  The man was half in shadow, and Walter hadn’t seen him at first. He jumped. “Damn, you scared me.” He gave a little laugh. “Nah, I got it, thanks,” he said, fishing his lighter out of his pocket.

  The man shrugged and shook out the match he’d proffered. “I think wood, even just the hint of it, gives the smoke a better flavor,” he said. He dropped the match and held out his hand. “Lou.”

  Walter finished lighting his cigarette and took the other man’s hand. Suddenly, the name, the accent, the description. “Hang on. Do I know you?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly your brother and mother have told all sorts of tales.” He leaned in. “Lies, all of them. Your brother ...he was less than careful, I suppose.”

  Careful? Walter narrowed his eyes. “Wait, what do you—are you trying to say you and my brother were involved?”

  “I wouldn’t choose that term, but ...“ A little shrug, a grin. “If you like.”

  Walter looked the man up and down. This man, Lou, though Walter could sense “Lou” was not likely to be his real name, was now positively beaming. “You want something,” Walter said matter-of-factly. He sighed. “God, do I have to always bail him out of something? You want money? How much to keep you quiet?” He began to reach for his wallet when the clouds parted and moonlight fell on the garden, causing Lou’s skin to glow an eerie amber.

  Walter never saw the jaws coming at him until it was far, far too late.

  “Louis, what if I told you you could have anything you want?” The man was elegant, older than Mordana, who encountered the stranger late in high school at a coffee shop. “What would you want?”

  Mordana had considered the question carefully, but everything kept spinning back to the boys—just slightly younger than he but always ignorant of his existence. The triplets who had everything while he struggled. He was intellectual and yet went unnoticed by teachers and classmates alike, while the Verrat boys earned acceptances at schools across the country. Mordana’s prep school scholarship would not extend to college, and his mother had already explained the reality of their finances.

  And yet instead of voicing a wish for a scholarship or a job or even an acceptance at a decent university, Mordana’s heart—already blackened by resentment—forced a different confession.

  “I want them to suffer,” he’d blurted out.

  The man had looked up from his drink. “Living well is the best revenge, the adage goes,” the man had said carefully. “Who is ‘they’ and why must they suffer? Why not instead think of something—”

  “It’s their fault, the three of them,” Mordana had continued. “No, I don’t care what happens to me, so long as they suffer.”

  The man had sighed, a heavy weight seeming to hang about him. “If you’re so imbued with suffering, my boy,” the man had said, “then I think it only fitting you experience it as well.”

  The man had taken Mordana into an alley beside the shop afterward, where amidst kisses and caresses there had been a bite.

  Upon the next full moon, Mordana relished in his new form. Freedom, he knew. Freedom for himself, and what greater freedom could be had but in revenge?

  Never mind his targets didn’t even know he existed. He knew, and that was enough.

  Bradley stirred his tea, staring out the window as had become his habit. He knew it was unlikely he would spot his brother amongst the sparkling lights of the city, with streets so far below the windows of his penthouse apartment, but somewhere Bradley knew Walter existed, even if only as remnants of his battered and destroyed body lying dead in an alley. Maybe by watching the sky turn from red to black, the sun fall as the moon rose, maybe that would give Bradley an insight about where to look.

  It had been a month, and tonight he watched a full moon burn silvery gold against a sea of midnight velvet and tiny pinpricks of stars. The night of the party, there had also been a full moon. They’d searched for Walter under it and kept shouting his name through the woods near Madge’s estate even as the moon faded and dawn broke.

  His mother had been casting cold glares at Stewart as the voices of the search party wafted back to the patio. Finally, Bradley could take it no longer.

  “Did you do something, Stew?” he demanded. He waved a hand at Madge. “What’s all this about? Where’s Walter?”

  Madge looked from son to son. She said nothing, but one dark eyebrow lifted.

  Stewart sighed. “Okay, yes, fine. I saw him.”

  “Great!” Bradley exhaled. “Where is he?”

  “No, not Walter,” Stewart clarified. He ran a hand through his already-messy hair, sending it even more askew. “Louis.”

  Now a small sound pulled Bradley out of his memories and he turned, spotting the very brother who’d set the wolf upon them. Stewart was wearing wrinkled pajamas and a week’s worth of beard growth. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “I could find him,” Stewart suggested. “I’m sure I could scrounge up one working phone number. I could—”

  “You’ve done enough,” Bradley interrupted. “And besides, I have it covered.” He took off his glasses and polished the lenses with the tail of his shirt.

  “How? You told me you can’t find Walter.”

  “No, I can’t find Walter, not yet anyway,” Bradley confirmed. “But look.” He gestured at the window. “You think Mordana won’t come for me?”

  Stewart’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

  “Walter didn’t know what he was up against. He didn’t have all the facts,” Bradley went on. He wandered from the window and picked something up from behind a chair near the fireplace. “I do.”

  In his hands he held a shotgun.

  “That won’t do it,” Stewart said.

  “Our parents’ wedding silver,” Bradley said. He patted the long barrel of the gun. “Found a guy to make it into bullets. Took a while, but I knew we had a month.” He glared at Stewart. “It cost me, though. I’m adding that to the ledger.”

  Stewart collapsed onto the sofa. “Look, I made some really, really bad decisions. I understand.”

  “Do you?” Bradley slid the handle on the gun, cocking the hammer with a percussive chunk. “Do you really, little bro? Do you get what’s out there in the night, all because of what you did?”

  “I thought I loved him!”

  “The Verrat brothers don’t get to love anybody anymore,” Bradley snapped. “We have too much to lose.”

  Suddenly, the fireplace emitted a whoosh of sparks and air, and a loud scrabbling came from down the chimney shaft. There was an inhuman roar. Bradley leapt over the couch and positioned himself behind it, using the curved back as cover. The shotgun rested in the crook of the right armrest.

  “Get out of here,” Bradley stage-whispered to Stewart. “Barricade yourself in your bedroom. Call nine-one-one.”

  “And tell them what?” Stewart asked. “There’s a werewolf after me?”

  “Call it an attack, which is what it is,” Bradley countered.

  The scrabbling grew louder, closer ...

  “Go!” Bradley shouted.

  Fire bloomed forth several feet into the living room. Bradley vaulted himself backward, past the couch to the wall opposite. The couch burst into flame, and Stewart, still not out of the room, yelped as his left leg was caught in the conflagration. He pulled a blanket off the loveseat and began swatting at himself, eventually wrapping himself up and rolling around on the floor.

  Bradley’s eyes began to sting and burn, welling up with tears. The thing emerging from the fireplace was no longer a wolf, no longer a man, but some horrible, bestial combination of the two, fur and hair gone, singed off, skin pink and raw and roasting. There was a smell of rotting meat.

  Bradley rais
ed the gun, the muzzle shaking, and sent a bullet into the brain of Louis Mordona. As the shell fell into Bradley’s lap, he felt the heat of the fire grow warmer. A sudden swell of agony overtook his lower extremities, and Bradley knew he, too, was now burning.

  “I’m dead,” he croaked, “but I’m gonna take you with me, motherfucker.”

  The thing that once was Louis barked out a demonic laugh. “Literally, you pig. Literally.” He laughed again.

  Bradley cut the laughter off by sending another bullet straight to the werewolf’s heart.

  Walter Verrat knew it was inappropriate to flirt in a cemetery, but ever since he arrived to lay flowers on his brothers’ graves, he couldn’t take his eyes off the dark-haired young woman in the next row over. She was brushing leaves from an ancient-looking headstone and murmuring to it quietly. As soon as it was clear she was on her way out, Walter knew he had to follow her.

  He kissed the fingertips of his glove and pressed it in turn to each of his brothers’ names carved into the polished granite before rising and jogging after his prey.

  It was easy to keep an eye on her crimson coat.

  wholesale

  “I can give you anything and everything you need.” Oh, yes, you can! And I’m committed, accepting no substitutes, embracing the paradigm!

  A modest proposal: tasteful, elegant, appropriate. I slipped the ring on, its tag gleaming. Its point of purchase impressed. Plans spun on.

  “Do you take this company to be your sole provider of lifestyle concepts?” Oh, yes, I do forever! My dress, my lattés, my towels and music!

  “And do you take this consumer to be your target demographic for as long as you both shall live?” Silence. Honey, did you hear the question?

  “If anyone objects to this content provider and this consumer joining in holy matrimony, speak—” Yes! I object! I served you well for years!

  Yes, but your concepts are dull and you don’t cater to my need for trends and acceptance. You only give me one thing when I need eighteen.

  My old brand reached out, but I rejected it, embracing the new mysterious stranger. Only...no. It had moved on to a younger age bracket.

  Will you take me back? I still have my loyalty card! I still get your coupons, your Groupon deals still tempt me! Please! I can change!

  It’s too late. Then there I am in the gutter, rudderless, looking at used goods on Craigslist, weeping into cups of gas station coffee.

  Now I’m a mess: top 40 radio, broadcast TV, secondhand everything. I check things out of libraries. I have no identity, no group, no label.

  Time flies; I disappear more completely, slipping from 18-34 to invisibility. I fear my disposable income is no longer wanted and desired.

  But then! The AARP card comes, the resorts beg for my business, and a new suitor appears on the scene. “You silver fox!” I’m yours forever!

  Yan-gant-y-tan

  “I only got one bar and it’s not connecting to the GPS.”

  Nissa glared at Colin. “Are you trying to make this sound like a horror movie?”

  Colin rolled his eyes. “Quit being dramatic. C’mon.”

  Nissa stopped walking. “I do see light,” she said, “but I don’t think that’s a gas station.”

  The man was suddenly in their path. He had an ill-kempt beard. Behind his back, something glowed.

  “Bit dark ta be out on yer own, innit, kids?”

  Colin grabbed Nissa’s hand. “Back off, pal.”

  The man opened his eyes wider and stepped backward. “Beggin’ yer pardon, lad.”

  “Let’s just go back to the car,” Nissa pleaded.

  “Is there a gas station around?” Colin asked. “Don’t try to take us there. We’ll find it.”

  The man chuckled. “Not in this gloom, ya won’t.” He moved his hands out from behind his back. On the tips of his right fingertips, five small candles spun.

  Colin yanked Nissa by the arm and flew in the opposite direction at breakneck speed, both of them screaming.

  The man took the candle from his index finger. “Just offerin’ you a light,” he said feebly. He shrugged and began whistling, melting back into the forest.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  K.W. Taylor is the author of the urban fantasy Sam Brody series, about a dragonslaying disc jockey (The Red Eye and The House on Concordia Drive, both 2014 from Alliteration Ink). She has an MFA from Seton Hill University. Taylor lives in a restored Victorian home in Ohio with her tech writer husband and—unlike every other author in the world—an insanely photogenic cat. She teaches college English and women’s studies and blogs at kwtaylorwriter.com. The Curiosity Killers, Taylor’s first science fiction novel, will be released in 2016 by Dog Star Books, the science fiction imprint of Raw Dog Screaming Press.