Feral

by Serafini, Matt

  That'd be a prelude to about a thousand other fucking headaches he didn't feel like considering. There were guaranteed to be lots of questions and he, as Sheriff, would be responsible for answering many of them.

  Something's gotta give...

  His eyes crawled to the clock directly over Markle's head. It was half past five now. He thought of the loaded Glock and wondered if cleaning up splattered brains and blasted skull was within the realm of possibility before the town came to life.

  The thought of cold-blooded murder buoyed his mind with shame. Too many blind eyes had already been turned, including his own. Trever Ingram wasn't a monster, though.

  Just a coward.

  So he lied. Told Jack Markle that he was going to drive on up to the Big East and check into this missing girl, Molly Perkins, and her disappearance. Assured him that he would also find out the deal with the unmarked room in the basement. Promised that he wouldn't stop kicking ass until he'd taken every name.

  Markle seemed satisfied with this approach. "Thank you, sheriff. It's to the point where I'm too messed up to even go back there. After what happened tonight, I don't know that I can ever go back. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I felt like my life was in danger."

  "Just leave it to me, boy. I want you to prepare for the possibility that this is just one colossal fuck up on the part of you, but, if anything did happen to your girl, I'm getting to the bottom of it. As for your friend, I'm not going to consider him missing just yet. You said yourself that he'll sell his one-year-old sister out for a piece of pussy. If he's shacking up with the town cooze, I see no reason to assume he's in danger."

  "Whatever you can do, sheriff. Anything."

  Ingram walked him to the door and patted his back while offering undeliverable assurances. The kid looked nervous, saying he wasn't sure where he was going for the night, though it wasn't likely to be in Greifsfield.

  Good for you, boy.

  Ingram recommended a little roadside motel off Route 80, heading into Pittsfield.

  "Then that's where I'll go."

  "Tell Gillian that Trever sent you. Might just net you a spoon for the continental breakfast, but it's worth a shot."

  "Thanks."

  "Go on, now. I'll be sure to give you a call a later on. After I've checked things out and talked with a few of my boys."

  Markle finally left after repeated thank yous.

  Ingram headed back to his office and went straight for the Southern Comfort. After a few sips and another Pall Mall, he felt okay about things.

  He fumbled for the radio. Dan Fogelberg's Leader of the Band was playing, its somber melody fit his mood like a glove. He slumped in his chair and swiveled to face the wall. Cracking black sky gave way to dim light, while songbirds ushered in the arrival of another beautiful mountain day.

  They'd be here within the hour.

  He unholstered the Glock, clutching it tight with a blank stare. How could he have allowed this to continue for so long? Re-election in this county was impossible after his laissez faire approach to local law enforcement. Berkshire County had already been taken from him anyway. Soon there wouldn't be a law to uphold.

  He thought through his options and didn't like a single one. It was all shit, no matter what he did.

  With a final swig of SoCo and another puff on his Pall Mall, his thirty third today, he stubbed the cigarette out and pressed the Glock to his temple.

  "Fuck it," he said and pulled the trigger.

  Five

  "I feel fucking fantastic."

  Allen watched breaking morning from the lawn chair on Elisabeth’s deck.

  There was plenty to feel good about: the fever was a memory, the summer morning's tranquil glow calmed him, and heightened awareness of the surrounding splendor made him feel like a new man.

  An adorable family of deer scavenged breakfast just beyond the tree line, their hooves stomped the forest floor with compacted echoes.

  Most importantly, the woman of his dreams was currently asleep in her bed, relieved that he was finally awake and able to move freely. He closed his eyes and listened to her soft breaths, thinking he had never heard anything more wonderful.

  To say he felt fantastic was an understatement, but only because Allen lacked the words to convey it any more succinctly.

  Senses fired on all cylinders: crisp mountain air invaded his nostrils and infused him with more energy than ever. His ears flexed, picking up on a sparrow's treetop ditty. He stifled the urge to get up and do something—to move—because Elisabeth made him swear that he would recuperate.

  "Do not get into trouble while I am asleep."

  Right now, there was no better way to recharge his internal batteries than by bathing in Mount Greyrock's tranquility. Finally, there was value in a good country vacation.

  The lazy morning gave way to an eventual rumble in his stomach and Allen trekked back into the house, leaving the impish wildlife to drop down a few grades in his ears as he closed the sliding door behind him. Elisabeth didn't keep a stocked fridge and its contents made him indecisive, wondering if a quick trip to the grocery store would better satiate the hunger. He reached for an apple but reconsidered when the thought of eating it did little to entice him. Everything in the fridge, from clean-cut steaks, cold cuts (sliced too thin, and without enough substance in the bites), to a box of pastries failed to satisfy his craving.

  Half-heartedly, he decided on pasta, ignoring the fact that boiled macaroni and tomato sauce churned his stomach. This was his go-to dinner whenever indecision struck, why would now be any different?

  He emptied the boxed spaghetti into a pot of boiling water and stirred it while a car approached. A moment later, someone ascended the porch steps. That someone carried an unmistakably feminine scent, a floral aroma that aroused him. Bath and Body Works danced in air around him as he hurried to greet it, moving on instinct.

  A young brunette woman stood beyond the sliding door. From her expression, she was surprised to see him.

  "Who the hell are you?" She took a step back.

  Her hostility startled him. Not because she smelled so pleasant, but because she carried so much fear. It was woven through her abrasive tone and stained her entire aura.

  He only blinked as his mind searched for words appropriate for his confrontation. None came.

  "I said, who are you? What the fuck are you doing here?" Her head bobbed up to look over his shoulder. She was looking for someone else.

  "Elisabeth's asleep," he said.

  "Who's Elisabeth? I don't know who that is, or who you are, but you need to tell me what you're doing here."

  "I'm staying with Elisabeth."

  She stared incredulously, in silence. Blood streamed through her veins with enough haste to kill her, and her heart thundered so hard it was like being front row at a Deftones concert. The constant drumming provoked his ears with constant throbs.

  With a disbelieving sigh, she flashed her cell phone.

  "I'm on the phone to the police unless you stop it with these games."

  Police? This was escalating beyond his control. Her threatening tone didn't sit well, and instead aggravating him to the point where his own heart began thumping in competition with hers. He wasn't a confrontational person, but confusion made him feel stupid. And that pissed him off.

  There was no time to diffuse the situation. He sprung onto the deck and the slightly older woman humped back, startled.

  "Listen," he said. "I don't know what you're upset about, but if we could just tal..."

  "You don't know what I'm upset about? You're living in my parents' house. I haven't been able to get in touch with them in months, and you don't know why I'm upset..."

  "Your parents? C'mon, there's gotta a mistake here."

  "Mistake? I grew up in this house. There's no mistake. Are you going to tell me the truth, or am I coming back with the police?"

  "I'm not sure what's happening here, but…"

  "Okay, fine." She turned to leave but Allen,
much to his surprise, lashed out and took her by the arm. She pulled away and responded with a violent push that sent him colliding against the deck rail.

  "Get the fuck away from me." She started down the steps in a hurry.

  Whirling emotions attacked, and he couldn't sort them. Anger brewed, persistent confusion stoked it, and he suddenly realized he hated this woman.

  He spat on Elisabeth's name, too. He was furious and inconsolable over the cunt's refusal to be honest. That was the reason for this mess. There was only rage now. Everything else felt incidental. How else was he supposed to react? These feelings of helplessness were the ones he tried like hell to avoid. Here was a situation that needed diffusion but he couldn't figure out how to do that.

  "Please, just let me talk to you for a second."

  "We can talk all you want once I come back with the cops, you psycho."

  "Wait, one second...I'll call the cops myself."

  She stopped. Without turning, she said, "Are you going to tell me where my parents are?"

  "I would if I knew..."

  "Then this is for the police..."

  Allen jumped down steps and landed on bent knees. His feet continued without slowing. Again, he reached for her. She evaded his hand and slapped his face.

  "Fucker!" She pulled open the car door and dove inside.

  The sting against his cheek excused violent urges already simmering. Her beating heart pumped out streams of thick, rich blood that he apparently craved. Her body trembled, fear transforming into something palpable. It teased him to see her like this—forbidden fruit.

  He suddenly realized what he wanted to eat. It wasn't the boiling pasta upstairs.

  This was much more exciting and fulfilling.

  He snatched the inquisitive woman by her ankles and ripped her from the car, her nails cracking and breaking along the upholstery as she fell out and smashed headfirst into gravel. She tried to kick his advances away, but he brushed her resistance aside with minor annoyance.

  Cruel laughter fell out of his throat—a sound that wasn't his.

  In a single motion, he picked her up and squeezed her tight. Her jaw chattered, petrified breath gusting.

  Allen inhaled this, instantly drunk on her terror.

  "You want to treat me like a fucking scumbag?" The words came out in a growl, angrier than he had ever been.

  Her wiggles weren't enough for escape. The horror was intoxicating. Between his legs, his sex throbbed against his jeans. It was an unconditioned response, but he was beyond fighting it.

  She felt it too, and started to plead.

  Allen's strength increased, his muscles stretched and expanded like a helium balloons beneath his skin. He screamed out in pain, but also in horror. What was happening to him? With a harsh growl, he flung her face-first to the dirt. She smacked and skidded along as his vision blurred. Pressure built between his eyes that he couldn't stand. Hissing bones popped and re-formed immediately.

  He blamed her for this, and dropped onto her. She kicked and punched blindly, and every blow strengthened his determination to kill her. Her resistance was amusing, and he snickered beneath the shifting pain.

  She might have offered a whimpered "please," but his thoughts were lost beneath his transformation.

  His eyes grew and widened, enabling to see and understand clearly for the first time: only the hunger mattered.

  Her terror continued to arouse him. Allen drank it in, savoring it like sips of malt scotch, craving more and more of it.

  He had been staring at the nape of her neck, at the pale and scraped gooseflesh. His now-elongated nose pushed against it with a curious sniff, and he sighed with ecstasy while inhaling the delicious scent.

  Unable to resist, he bit into it and felt the backwash of blood mixed with raw meat. His edge started dulling as soon as it hit his tongue.

  Beneath him, the hysterical and pathetic face wept for her life. His newborn consciousness wasn't fazed, because his body was in the final throes of the change.

  The wolf pushed his mouth against the wet and runny wound and continued eating.

  ***

  Elisabeth sat in the painting room, perched atop a wooden stool, balancing while she stared at the empty canvas in front of her.

  The first image that came to mind was a tiny male pup curled at the foot of a larger black wolf. Protective claws draped over the fledgling, her yellow eyes staring outward, daring the world to separate them.

  Too motherly.

  She did not want this to end up on a Wal Mart T-shirt.

  Next, she considered naked human bodies, groping one another in lust personified while spirit wolves haunted the sky overhead. She liked this idea and thought about sketching an outline when she worried that it was perhaps too hackneyed.

  Too on-the-nose.

  Elisabeth knew better than to rush these things, but the creative urges were flowing, despite having only slept for three hours. She had sprung out of bed, compelled by the urge to create—something.

  She put a finger in her mouth and nibbled it while thinking it over. Things were looking up, and now was the time to enjoy life.

  If your pup can accept his new existence.

  The blank canvas stared back, the perfect reflection of this million-dollar question.

  When she heard the growl, she hopped off the perch, tossed the paintbrush into the water bucket at her feet, and popped the window.

  The creature's presence, her pup, wasn't far. She combatted the urge to go to him, deciding it was best for him to discover the wolf on his own.

  She closed her eyes and listened to his ferocity, hoping that it was one of his silly friends he was unleashing it on.

  Her next vision was of a man and woman strolling through a field of mangled bodies. Their faces turned toward each other, aware of nothing else.

  This was an idea she liked. Simple, clean, and of the moment.

  Elisabeth smiled and went back to work, fueled further by the sounds of dying cries and tearing flesh.

  ***

  Allen awoke when he tried turning his head and found it stuck to a mutilated corpse. His clothes were ragged strips; his mouth filled with blood. His teeth ached from the shredded meat wedged between every one of them.

  He needed floss as much as he needed aspirin.

  This woman had come looking for her parents. He remembered it, and everything he'd done to her. Worse had been the things he'd wanted to do. And then what the animal had done. If he was going crazy and this was in his imagination as he hoped it was, it didn't explain his proximity to the freshly slain body, and how he had to pull his cheek away with a tear to get free of it.

  Besides, lunatics didn't often ponder their sanity, did they? Everyone else had the problem where they were concerned. Try as he might, Allen couldn't hang the blame for this anywhere but at his own feet.

  His throat heaved and bucked at the realization that he was covered with stranger's dried blood. Crusts of it hardened at the corners of his mouth, and covered his hands and chest. The lump of disgust in his gullet plummeted into his stomach. A dry heave exploded in a disgusting burp. Then his stomach buckled again. A vicious circle.

  Getting vertical calmed his stomach. The dry heaves went into submission, leaving a lingering taste worse than stale cigarettes. Every swallow recalled the sensation of ingesting a stranger's plasma. Each swallow made him want to buckle and vomit.

  That vicious circle again.

  Greyrock's mountain air was cold on his nearly naked flesh, and his manhood was tiny and shriveled because of it, adding unshakable embarrassment to his list of traumas. He couldn't believe that he cared about that in the wake of what he'd done, but vanity knew no bounds.

  Even as shock took him.

  Allen stumbled back toward the house, steadying himself against the vinyl siding as he went. The shower was inviting and he stayed beneath the soothing stream for longer than intended—an hour, maybe more. When he dried off, he took twenty minutes to floss his teeth, whi
ch was awkward thanks to his pruned hands. He wrapped a towel around his waist when it was time to leave the bathroom's sanctity.

  Elisabeth was in the living room. She wore an earth-toned sundress and sat stroking the necklace that dangled above her breasts. Animal's teeth that stabbed straight down between her cleavage. Any other day, he might have taken the time to inquire about it.

  She whipped a small bundle of clothes at him.

  "Figured you'd need a change." There was plenty of curiosity in her eyes, though she refused to say anything more.

  Allen knew that she was waiting for him to flip. He felt her tension from here and was surprised that she cared this much. Even her inquisitive face was sexy, with skittish eyes that bulged wide and could narrow into almond slits. He might've gone to her if not for the blood on his hands.

  "I've got to go back to the resort," he said, eager to get the hell out of here.

  "Are you going to tell me where my parents are?"

  "You shouldn't go back there, Allen. Let me go and get whatever you need."

  "I need to talk to Jack. Tell him..."

  "Tell him what? Do you think there is anything you can say to your old friends that would make them understand what's happened to you?"

  "What has happened to me, Elisabeth?" He wanted to hear her say it so that he had somewhere to project his anger. More importantly, he needed someone to explain what in the hell he was now.

  Elisabeth's blue eyes were unreadable. "Alright," she said. "You know your friends best. But I don't think you should spend too much time away from me."

  She got up and kissed him as soon as he got the shirt over his head. He was angry and confused, but he kissed her back anyway. Her mouth was sweeter than usual.

  "You probably have a lot of questions."

  An understatement.

  "Give me some time to myself," Allen said.

  He threw the rest of his clothes on in a hurry, eager to be alone. To be away from Elisabeth. Her comfort wasn't needed, because it wasn't comforting. It was a reminder of her culpability. She had done this, and because she had, somebody's life hung over him.