by Jeff Strand
None of them tried to be heroes.
Pathetic cowards.
Though Shane stood at the rear of the car, Robyn didn't seem to realize that he wanted her to open the trunk. She got into the driver's side, closed her door, started the engine, then opened the door again and looked out, annoyed. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Get in!"
Shane rapped his knuckles against the trunk lid.
"No. We need to talk to her."
Shane knocked again. If she made him change back to yell at her...
She popped the trunk lid. He opened it. Damn it. The trunk was full of all kinds of crap. When was the last time Robyn had bothered to clean this out? There wasn't room to put Ally in here, and there wasn't time to start emptying it, so she'd just have to go in the back seat.
Shane changed back to human, slammed the trunk closed, then opened the back door and shoved Ally, who seemed barely aware of her surroundings, inside the car. He got in after her just as he noticed Crabs running back toward them.
"Why is that idiot running right in the middle of the road?" Robyn asked. "Everyone's going to see him!"
Shane chuckled. "Sweetheart, we're long past that."
"Really? You think we're past the point where we have to be cautious?"
"Yes, actually. Admit it. This is awesome. I can't even explain how great I feel right now. We should've done this a long time ago. Think about how much of our lives we've wasted by not embracing what we truly are."
Robyn shook her head. "The only good thing to come out of this is that we've got Ally back."
"What are you talking about? Hell, you're the one who slashed Peggy's throat."
"And I did it because we were out of time. I didn't want to do it."
"You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that," Shane said, leaning across Ally so that he could open the opposite door for Crabs. Crabs started to climb into the back seat, until Robyn turned around.
"What are you doing? Change first."
Crabs changed back into a human, then got into the back seat. Robyn started driving before Crabs could even close the door.
"Robyn killed Peggy," said Shane.
"Did she?" Crabs grinned. "Was it a transcendental experience?" Crabs was always a little difficult to understand when he spoke, and it was even harder now that he had blood running out of his split nose. He didn't even bother to wipe it off. Shane admired that.
"It needed to be done to get us out of there," said Robyn. "There was nothing 'transcendental' about it. You two psychos need to get yourselves under control, or you're going to wind up in prison."
"Or a zoo," said Shane.
"Go ahead and joke. This is really hilarious. That's fine. I don't have a problem with being the party-pooper, because you'll thank me when you're not sliced up and being studied under a microscope."
"Don't worry about her," Shane told Crabs. "She's more excited than we are. You can see it in her eyes."
"May I see your eyes?" Crabs asked.
Robyn, not surprisingly, did not look back to let him see her eyes. But Shane knew the truth. Her pupils were dilated just like they were when he was giving it to her really good, and if Crabs and Ally weren't in the car with them, she'd probably be looking for a place for them to pull over. Hell, maybe she'd try to figure out an excuse to leave Crabs and Ally alone for a few minutes, so that they could transform and get it on, still covered in blood.
"George and Lou," said Shane. "Dead?"
Crabs inspected some blood underneath his fingernail. "No."
"They got away?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"What manner of speaking? They either got away or they didn't."
"Then they got away. They drove off into the sunset of their lives. But I smelled a lot of blood. Where do kidnappers go to treat their wounds?"
"Robyn did get Lou pretty bad. My baby's killing all kinds of people today!"
"Mom?" asked Ally, in a soft voice.
"Mom's not here," said Crabs with a giggle.
"Don't make jokes about the death of her mother," said Shane, punching Crabs in the shoulder, hard. "The hell's the matter with you?" Shane placed a reassuring hand on Ally's knee. "Honey, your mom was holding you back. I know you loved her, but if she loved you, she wouldn't have tried to stop you from coming with us. We know what's happening with you. She doesn't."
Ally seemed to become aware of her surroundings, all at once, with a violent shudder. "Let me out."
"Can't do it, honey."
"She killed Mom."
"Mom brought it on herself. Someday you'll understand that. Why didn't your mom tell you what you really were? Did you ever wonder that?"
"She didn't know!"
"Of course she did. How could a mother not know that?"
"Mom was one, too?"
"Yeah," said Shane, hoping that Robyn wouldn't call him out on his lie. "She was. And she didn't say a damn thing to you."
"Neither did you."
"She made me promise not to! Believe me, honey, if your mom weren't so paranoid, I would've told you long ago."
Shane could see in the rear-view mirror that Robyn was glaring at him. Like, really glaring at him. He could legitimately be in deep shit with her, in a nookie-withholding manner, if he didn't set the record straight. And having watched her murder Peggy, he wasn't inclined to try to take the nookie without permission.
"Okay, that's not true," said Shane. "Daddy's just a little mixed up by all that's happened. Your mom was not a werewolf and didn't withhold anything from you. I didn't tell you, because I didn't think those genes had passed on to you, and would you have believed me if I told you?"
"Yes," said Ally. "If you'd changed into a werewolf, I would have believed you."
"All right. I can buy that. Look, you're going to go through a grieving process, and that's completely understandable. You may even hate me for a while. But I think you'll realize very soon that you're much better off. You don't have to worry about bullies at school, or anything."
"Dad, you work in a cubicle. You hate your life."
"Not anymore. Not anymore, honey. Everything changes tonight. We are going to roam free!"
"We're going to sleep out in the snow? Kill deer for food? What kind of fucked-up fantasy world are you living in, Dad?"
"Watch your mouth!" said Robyn. "I don't care what we've all been through, I will not have you using that kind of language in my car."
"You murdered my mom and you care if I say the f-word?"
"That's right. I do. And that's something you're going to have to accept, because you live with us now, and you're going to follow our rules, and quite honestly I'm getting sick of hearing about your mother. She's dead. We can't change that. Let's move on."
"Whoa," said Shane. "That's harsh."
"I was safer with George and Lou, and they're the ones who kidnapped me! You're all insane!"
"Sanity is in the eye of the beholder," said Crabs.
"What the hell does that even mean?" asked Ally. She began to sob. "Let me go, just let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go!"
"Nope," said Shane. "Sorry, but you're clearly in a state of shock right now, and you don't know what's best. Just relax. Go to sleep. Dad will take care of everything."
"Where are we going?"
"Out of town before they start putting up road blocks."
"Where after that?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters! How could it not matter?"
Shane hated to admit it, but he kind of wanted to slap the shit out of his daughter right now. Why couldn't she see that this was the best thing for her? How the hell did somebody discover that she was werewolf and not want to be with other werewolves? And she said that he was insane?
He could hear police sirens, and loved the fact that he didn't really care. What were the cops going to do to them? Launch a missile at their car?
Crabs finally wiped some blood off his face. "A loose end remains untied."
"It wou
ldn't, if you'd caught them," said Shane.
"I don't have wheels or a motor. But now we're in something that does."
"Let it go," said Robyn. "We'll never find them."
"I have the scent."
"Seriously?" Shane asked. "You can track them down?"
"I make no promises. I doubt they're lingering."
"But you think you can do it? Even after getting that chunk of glass in your nose?"
"I do."
Shane rubbed his hands together in glee. "I love it. We'll hunt down the scumbags who stole Ally, and then we're off to do whatever we want, whenever we want! Unless somebody has a problem with that idea."
"We can't stay in this car," said Robyn. "We have to get another one, quick, and then you have to swear to me that if Crabs can't pick up the scent right away, we'll leave George and Lou for another time."
"I swear," said Shane.
Crabs held up three fingers in the Boy Scout salute. "Honor."
Robyn sighed. "Fine."
Shane would not be picky—they'd murder the driver of the first car that they could find in a reasonably isolated area. But he hoped it would be a beautiful woman. Preferably a blonde, long hair, well endowed. Not too much makeup.
If she looked like Peggy, all the better. But he wouldn't be fussy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Demise
George pulled the van over to the side of the road. This place wasn't secluded; they were on a two-lane highway with a bit of traffic, but right now George didn't care.
"Lou! Lou!" George slapped him in the face. "Come on, Lou, don't do this to me! Don't do this to me!"
George was blubbering like a goddamned baby, with snot and everything. He knew that Lou was dead. No amount of shouting and slapping and praying was going to change that. His friend was dead.
He heard the rear door of the van open, and for a second he thought that somebody was coming inside, but he glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw that it was Eugene, getting out.
"Please, Lou, you can't leave me like this. This is bullshit, Lou. You're not going to leave me alone. That's a dick move. A dick move, Lou. Please, c'mon, open your eyes. Open your fucking eyes."
Lou wasn't breathing. There was no trace of a pulse. He wasn't coming back.
Eugene opened the door. He was already shivering in the cold, since he remained dressed only in his boxer shorts. "What happened to him?"
George wanted to say something hostile. Instead, he just wept.
Eugene pressed his fingertips against the side of Lou's neck, being careful not to scrape him with his talons. Then he held his palm over Lou's mouth.
"Okay, no pulse, no breathing..." Eugene reached for Lou's jacket, batted at the zipper, then gave up. "Can you unzip this for me?"
George unzipped Lou's jacket and pulled both sides open. Eugene pressed his pointy ear against Lou's chest. He squeezed his eyes shut as he listened for a heartbeat.
"There's nothing," said Eugene. "Oh, Jesus, George, I'm sorry. I know CPR but I can't do it by myself. I'll put his seat back." Eugene opened the side door, then reclined Lou's seat as far back as it would go before it hit the cage.
Eugene pressed his mouth over Lou's and gave two quick breaths. Then he tapped Lou's chest with the hand that was a paw. "Right here. Both hands. Push with your palms. Sharp upward pushes. Fast ones. Thirty times."
George put his hands on Lou's chest as instructed. He wasn't really at the right angle, but he contorted his body so he could do the pushes correctly.
"Count them off," said Eugene.
"One, two, three, four..."
"A little harder."
"...five, six, seven, eight, nine..."
At thirty, George took his hands away and Eugene pressed his ear to Lou's chest. "Still nothing." Eugene gave Lou two more breaths. "Again."
George did thirty more pushes. Nothing. Two more breaths from Eugene. "Again."
"Don't die on me, you asshole," said George. "I mean it. I will kill myself and hunt you down in hell if you leave me. I don't have any other friends, you selfish piece of shit. I've got nobody. I swear, Lou, I will find a gun and shove it right in my mouth just to kick your ass in hell. Don't test me."
Eugene listened to Lou's chest. "I...I don't know what to tell you, George. There's just nothing there. I don't know what happened."
George knew what happened. Blood loss, two tranquilizer darts, stress, violence, and a body that was already high risk for cardiac arrest. The only surprising thing was that he didn't have a heart attack sooner.
A car pulled up behind them and stopped. There were no flashing lights, so it wasn't a police car. Just a Good Samaritan.
Eugene nervously looked back at the car. "I need to know what you want to do. Are we going to keep running?"
George punched the dashboard.
"George! Listen to me! If we're done, that's fine, but I'd like to know."
"We're still running."
"Okay. I'm getting back in."
Eugene hurried to the rear of the van. George heard a loud expletive as the Good Samaritan saw him. Then Eugene climbed back into the van, and the cage, and pulled the door closed behind him.
Lou was dead.
In a day where very little felt real, this was the most surreal moment of them all. How could Lou be dead? They'd spent virtually every waking moment together, driving each other crazy, for the past few months. Been a team for ten years. Neither of them were destined to live long, healthy lives, but it simply didn't seem possible that Lou was gone.
A heart attack. He'd died of a frickin' heart attack.
George wanted to swerve the van into the other lane, smash into something head-on, but with the way today had gone he'd survive the crash and end up as a limbless vegetable in a hospital ward.
He didn't believe in sentimental crap like, "Lou would have wanted me to go on and live a happy life," but Lou certainly wouldn't want him to commit suicide, go to prison, or get killed by those other three werewolves. The urge to smash up the van would pass.
His hand hurt. He'd really bashed it on the dashboard. Not a good idea to be injuring himself at a time when there were plenty of non-self-inflicted injuries available.
Eugene crawled to the end of the cage closest to George. "Will you be okay?"
"No."
"How long did you know him?"
"Don't talk to me."
"I'm just trying to help."
"Well, don't try, all right? You didn't just lose your best friend, so don't act like you're going to magically wave your werewolf wand and ease my misery."
"Sorry."
Aw, crap. Yeah, George was hurting right now, but Eugene had lost his son, his daughter, his wife, and been turned into a scientific art show experiment gone horribly wrong. If they wanted to play the game of Who Got Screwed Over Worse By Life, Eugene had him beat, big time.
"No, I apologize," said George. He blinked tears out of his eyes and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "It doesn't matter what I'm going through right now. That's not okay."
"It really is, though. I understand."
George looked over at his dead friend, hoping that he would somehow spring back to life. Ha-ha, fooled you! Sucker!
"Ten years," George said, his voice quivering as he returned his attention to the road. "I guess that's not so long in the grand scheme of things. There are a lot of people I've known longer. But we were partners. We trusted each other with our lives. It's like how a cop's bond with his partner can be stronger than the one he has with his wife, except that instead of catching bad guys we were the bad guys, and, you know, instead of protecting society we'd break people's thumbs."
"Probably more dangerous than police work," said Eugene.
"I know, right? At least if you're a cop you know that most of the people you work with aren't going to leave you for dead as soon as a job goes wrong. We had each other's backs. We might not have had anybody else's backs, but we had each other's."
Maybe this would
be a good time for the cops to find them. George looked so pathetic right now that they might let him go instead of having to listen to this big tough guy bawl like a teenaged girl whose boyfriend just broke up with her.
Crying time was over. He'd cry over Lou's grave after he buried him. Until then, he needed to focus. Mr. Dewey's death would definitely be a problem in the near future, but for right now all of the people he would have immediately sent out for vengeance were also dead.
He wished he knew how Ally was doing. Maybe once he had time to rest, heal, and try to gather some resources, he'd do some kind of rescue mission.
Yeah, right. Like he had any resources. He was about as useful to Ally as he had been to Lou.
George honestly didn't know if Mr. Reith's lack of being dead should be a concern. Was he the kind of person who would send men to Mexico or Canada to hunt George down? He had, as far as George knew, wanted the werewolf-kidnapping job to go badly, so maybe he was completely satisfied and George would never hear from him again.
So, if he took the optimistic view that he was in no current danger from Mr. Reith or Mr. Dewey's associates, and the cynical view that there was nothing he could do to save Ally, then the only thing he had to worry about right now was acquiring a new vehicle, and then getting someplace safe where he could hide out for a good long while.
Or he could hunt and kill those fucking werewolves.
"What do you want to do?" he asked Eugene.
"Right now?"
"Short term."
"Clothes would be great. Not Lou's. I hope you didn't think I meant that I wanted to take Lou's clothes."
"I didn't."
"Thank God. That would've been a horrible thing to suggest. I can't even imagine what you would've thought of me if I'd said that."
George took a moment to compose himself so that he wouldn't snap at Eugene again. "What I meant was, outside of the obvious need to get some clothes, what do you want to do? Do you want me to drop you off somewhere? Do you have any friends or relatives?"
