by Lori Devoti
According to what Mike had said, Samantha had left the motel on her own; that was good. He’d been afraid the doctor had found her and somehow gotten past Linda.
With that worry alleviated, he thought about Samantha and where she would choose to go on her own.
There was really only one answer—the one place he had made it clear he didn’t want her to go.
The cabin where the doctor had said her friend Allison would be. The friend he was sure was already a zombie.
Panic wrapped around him, but he shook it off. Fear was his enemy. He had to put aside any personal attachments he thought he might have for Samantha and be nothing but the hunter.
He lifted his chin so the moon’s light streamed over his face. Its pull tore at him. He didn’t try to control it, didn’t try to slow what was happening to his body or to avoid any bit of the pain. He embraced it. Unrestrained, his bones crunched, his skin stretched and guttural noises escaped from his throat. Then in one violent second it was over and he was standing on four legs. A wolf.
Ash drifted over him and clung to his fur. The ground felt dry and cracked under his paws. As all of this registered, he was off, running toward the cabin, one thought, one goal, pounding in his brain.
To get to the cabin and destroy the zombie.
He had to kill Allison.
Branches slapped Samantha in the face. Briars tore at her clothes. Her foot hit a rock and she stumbled, fell onto her hands and knees.
She jumped back up. Blood bubbled on her palms.
She stared at it in horror, remembering the zombie in the video attracted by his companion’s blood…attacking, devouring…
She grabbed leaves from the ground and scrubbed them over her skin then threw them in the opposite direction she meant to go. They floated back down at her feet. She kicked at them. “Sa-man-tha.”
Allison was behind her.
Samantha broke back into a run, heading she didn’t know where.
Caleb charged through the trees. The ground was icy and slick, but in his wolf form the semifrozen earth didn’t even slow his steps.
He was close now. He recognized the terrain.
He broke through the trees into the clearing, stopping long enough to scan the area before moving toward the cabin.
The door was hanging open, as if something had been rammed against the wood.
He didn’t bother to go inside. He spun instead, his nose on the ground, and searched for the scent of Samantha, or zombie.
He found both, and both were headed in the same direction.
His body stretched to its full length, he sprinted again.
Samantha’s feet and fingers were numb, but her heart was pumping hard. Allison was growing closer. She hadn’t yelled again, but Samantha could hear her smashing through the brush. She wasn’t bothering with stealth. But then zombies didn’t.
She…it…not she…not Allison…it… Samantha had to think of the body behind her that way. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to do what she would have to do to survive.
Her stomach clenched. She had no weapon and even if she did, she had no idea how she would bring herself to look at the body that had been Allison and kill her.
Her concentration thinned, she didn’t see the log stretched across her path. Her shins rammed into it, then her body pitched forward and she somersaulted onto the ground.
Pain shot through her back. She tried to stand, but the ground was slick. She couldn’t get her feet back under her.
“Sa-man-tha.” Allison’s upside-down face filled her view.
Her hands digging under dead leaves, Samantha clawed at the ground beside her.
A weapon. She needed a weapon.
Her fingers touched the sharp edge of a rock.
Allison leaned down as if to help her up. Samantha rolled forward, head between her legs, and landed on her butt three feet away. Her feet sliding on ice and leaves, she scrambled to a stand.
Allison stared at her with hollow, empty eyes.
“Caleb Locke. The doctor wants him.”
Back to the recording.
Samantha tightened her hold on the rock. Having it should have made her feel better, more in control, but the nausea was back. “Leave, Allison. Go back to the doctor. Tell him Caleb isn’t here.” So I don’t have to do this, she added silently.
Allison tilted her head side to side, then stepped over the log. “Must get Caleb Locke or get Samantha.”
She held out her arms like a damned movie zombie and took a giant step forward. Her fingers wrapped around Samantha’s neck.
She inhaled loudly and looked down. “Sa-man-tha. You are bleeding.”
The scent left by Samantha and Allison was erratic, following no set path, as if the person in the lead had been running wild, panicked.
At each twist Caleb slowed, circled until he was sure of the new direction. Then he would break into a run again, go as long as he could before another unpredictable turn.
He’d made it past three when he saw them. Allison with her hands wrapped around Samantha’s neck. The zombie pulled Samantha toward her then stopped. She seemed to say something. Her mouth opened, her teeth flashed and she jerked Samantha again, this time her jaws descending toward her friend’s bare neck. Caleb leaped.
He hit the pair hard. His body shot between them like a shim, pushing them apart. Samantha fell to the ground, but Allison only staggered.
He yelled at Samantha, told her to run, but in his wolf form it came out as a growl. Frustrated, he spun toward the zombie—Samantha’s friend, the reason Samantha had come to him, the woman she had begged him to save.
She reeked of rot. The stench was covered by some musky cologne, but the smell of death was impossible to hide, at least from a wolf. The body standing before him might look human, but it wasn’t. Probably hadn’t been since the video Samantha had shown him had been made.
Samantha was trying to save the dead. And that, Caleb knew all too well, was impossible.
The zombie swiveled, looking from him to Samantha. She frowned.
Caleb didn’t wait for her to sort out what had happened. He lunged. His teeth pierced the flesh of Allison’s arm. He could tell by the taste of her blood what he’d already guessed was true. She wasn’t alive and hadn’t been for weeks.
Samantha yelled and scrambled to her feet. She had a rock in her hand. She held it up as if ready to strike.
Caleb didn’t wait to see which one of them. He jerked the zombie to the ground, levered his jaws around its neck and tore his way through muscle, tendon and bone. He kept tearing until its head disengaged from its spine and rolled to the side.
When he looked up, Samantha was gone.
Samantha felt as if she had been running for hours…days…a lifetime. She had thought she was cold before, but that was nothing compared to the icy sheath that covered her inside and out now.
Her body kept moving, stumbling along as fast as her feet would carry her, but her brain was dead, stuck on the image of that wolf or dog, she wasn’t sure which, standing over Allison, ripping out her throat, of it looking up at her, its muzzle covered in blood. Allison’s blood.
A shiver ripped through her, but the shiver was a lie. She couldn’t deny that she had let the beast complete its attack, that she hadn’t done a thing to save her friend, that she had, in fact, been ready to do the same herself.
Her hand was empty. She had dropped the rock over a mile back, but she could still feel it pressed against her palm. She still knew exactly which sharp edge would be best to plunge into her friend’s skull. Could still feel the surge of fear and adrenaline and the need to strike that had rushed over her right before the wolf had interceded.
She would have killed Allison. She had thought she wouldn’t be able to, but she had been wrong. When it came to her life or her friend’s, she would have used that damned rock. She would have forgotten every promise she had ever made in order to survive.
Didn’t that make her a monster, too? Even more so? She still had fu
ll function of her brain, still remembered every secret she had shared with her friend, every soda they’d split, every afternoon they’d wasted shopping.
And still she would have killed her.
Samantha dropped to her knees and retched. Her stomach was empty, but it didn’t matter. She continued to gag and cough until her throat and lungs burned. Then, her palms and knees pressed into the dirt, she let her head hang between her shoulders and took deep, heaving breaths.
Finally empty, body and soul, she was able to think again.
It was over. There was no going back. She had to move on, think of where she was now, what she wanted now.
She knew the answer immediately.
Caleb. She had to find Caleb.
She forced her body to uncurl and her legs to hold her weight. Then she squared her shoulders and started walking. It was a cold, rough walk, but the added challenge of avoiding rocks and hidden holes gave her something on which to concentrate.
Ten minutes later she hit a paved road—the county highway that led to the camp. It looked different tonight. Cars and trucks were parked on both sides, some off in ditches, some partially blocking one lane.
It looked as if Anita was throwing a party.
The moon was full overhead, round and silvery. The extra light it cast should have been reassuring, but instead another shiver threatened. Samantha rubbed her hands over her arms and willed her unease away.
She had just seen her best friend torn to bits.
If she wasn’t shivering, suffering some symptoms of shock, she’d be worried that she was turning into a zombie herself.
Right now pain, whether physical or emotional, was her friend.
A howl ripped through the night. Before Samantha could register the sound, assure herself the cry didn’t mean the wolf or dog she’d seen attack Allison was near, another animal joined in, then another and another until the howls formed a chorus.
Something moved in the trees to her right, bodies racing through the underbrush. Her heart beating loudly in her chest, she darted behind a truck and ducked down.
A growl or a snarl and then the bodies were gone.
Samantha stood with her hands on the truck’s bed. She glanced to the side, recognized the vehicle from the motel parking lot. The motel owner’s.
Mike would know where Caleb was.
With no more thoughts of roaming wolf packs, she cut through the trees toward the camp.
There were noises in the woods, strange noises. She’d grown up in the country, had gone hunting with more than one boyfriend in the dead of night and early morning. She was used to the uneasy feeling of being in the woods in the small hours. She was used to the sounds of tree frogs and angry raccoons, too.
But these noises and the feeling that crept over her were different.
For one thing the noise was more a lack of noise. There were a few stirrings here and there, but no frogs or other creatures called. Of course, frogs wouldn’t be out in the cold—even if they had tree frogs in this part of the country. Samantha had no idea.
But she knew the stillness couldn’t be normal. Every forest had nocturnal animals. It was as if the trees were watching her…or something hiding in the trees was.
She could see the camp now. A bonfire burned in a stone circle. She hurried toward it, both for the warmth and to get out from under the shadow of the trees.
But near the fire, the uneasy feeling only grew. Despite the multitude of vehicles parked along the road, she was alone. She stood on one of the stones that formed the fire’s circle, her hands held over the dying flames, and glanced around. There were no lights on in the cabins. Everyone could be asleep.
Needing to know, she crept toward one of the buildings and pushed open the door. It swung inward on silent hinges.
There were rows of beds, like at a summer camp, but all were empty.
She walked from building to building and found not a single bed was occupied, and there was no sign of anyone in the kitchen or baths, either.
The camp was deserted.
She glanced back at the now almost dead fire.
Should she pull a Goldilocks and settle herself into some bed, hoping people returned soon and someone offered her a ride? Should she go back to the motel owner’s truck and wait for him, hope Caleb came with him?
Maybe it was just shock catching up with her, but neither seemed like a safe choice.
She opted instead to wedge her body into a dark corner of the cafeteria, a heated space, but next to a window where she would have the opportunity to see whoever or whatever approached before they saw her.
Sitting on the concrete with her knees drawn up to her chest, she stared into the darkness and waited. Minutes later her head nodded forward. When it hit her knee she jerked back awake. The process repeated awhile later. After the third time, she quit fighting, laid her cheek on her knees and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 18
C aleb’s first instinct had been to follow Samantha, but he had to make sure Allison was dead first. Truly dead. Even with her head missing, her body could still operate if the brain stem wasn’t destroyed. It took another few minutes to be one hundred percent certain.
By then Samantha had a good start on him, not that he couldn’t catch up. She would be stumbling blindly through the woods. In his wolf form, catching her would be no challenge at all.
He glanced at her best friend’s corpse. Her head had rolled three feet away from her body. Her eyes and mouth were open.
She had been going to bite Samantha. He had no doubt of that, no regret for ending Allison’s zombie existence, but how would Samantha feel?
He doubted she would see things the same way.
How did you face a woman after killing her best friend?
Except she didn’t know he was the killer. She’d seen a wolf take her friend down. She’d run from that wolf, not Caleb. He could get cleaned up and never let her know. He could live a double life. Other werewolves did. Caleb had never had to because he never let anyone get that close.
But now he had.
He had accepted what his wolf knew all along.
He had to have her.
But he also couldn’t live a lie.
If he and Samantha were to be together it could only be with her knowing he was a werewolf, which meant her knowing he had killed her friend.
It was unlikely she could accept the first fact. Impossible that she could accept the second.
He lifted his chin, stared at the moon and howled.
Then, weary to the marrow of his bones, he lowered his nose and trailed after her.
Laughter sounded close by. Samantha jerked, her head knocking against the wooden wall behind her. Blinking, she rubbed the back of her skull and struggled to remember where she was.
She’d awakened so many unexpected places lately she’d forgotten where she should be. But she knew wherever that was, it wasn’t here.
The room was dark and smelled of cleaning products and bacon. She wrinkled her nose. A cafeteria.
At the sound of more laughter she moved onto her knees and wiggled forward, until she could see out the window. The gray skies of dawn greeted her.
There was a group around the now blazing fire.
They were men and women ranging in age from twenty to eighty and each was naked. One man, broad shouldered and obviously good friends with his local gym, strode into a cabin and came back with an armful of clothes. He tossed pants to two other men of the same general description. A few seconds later, two of the women wandered into a cabin, too.
But most of the group stayed as they were, naked and laughing. They seemed happy, more than happy…fired up.
Samantha scanned the circle for signs of empty beer cans. One man was taking sips from a plastic water bottle, but that was it. None were staggering or even leaning to the side. They all seemed sober, just hyped up on adrenaline.
What kind of camp was Anita running?
And how exactly did Caleb know her? Know
the group? He obviously shared their lack of modesty. Samantha had to think he had something else in common with them, too.
Her gaze went back to the fire, wondering if she should leave her hiding place. She couldn’t stay crouched inside the building forever, and while it was strange most of the people gathered here chose to be and stay naked, none of them looked anything except human.
More specifically, none looked like a zombie.
So, perhaps Caleb and Anita were part of some nudist group. There was nothing supernatural about that. She could handle a little nudity.
As she glanced back over her shoulder for one more secret look at the group before joining them, five wolves/dogs bounded into the clearing. She clutched the doorknob, her mind telling her to rush out and yell a warning to the people gathered around the fire, but her legs refused to move.
Then something strange happened. The wolves rose onto their hind legs like poodles trained to dance, and their bodies began to shake. Their fur disappeared, seemed to be sucked back into their bodies. Their muzzles shortened, their ears shortened, everything about them changed until they weren’t wolves at all, but humans. Three men and two women, naked and looking every bit as exhilarated as the rest of the group.
Samantha’s hand lay on the handle; she couldn’t move it, couldn’t move at all. Werewolves.
It wasn’t possible.
But then neither were zombies.
She took a step back, glancing around the room as she did. Panic grabbed her. She needed to find a weapon. Her mind racing, she jogged through the cafeteria and into the kitchen. She jerked open a drawer and shuffled through it, slammed that one shut and tried another, kept moving until she found a set of knives, then she stared at it stupidly.
Silver. Wasn’t silver required to kill a werewolf?
Or was that just myth?
She grabbed the knife anyway.
God, she wished Caleb was here. He would know. Her mind stuttered.
