Wolf Hunt (Book 2)

by Jeff Strand

  But people did not always listen to Crabs. He did not care.

  He would have a lot of fun ripping strips of flesh off George's body, starting at the bottom and working his way up. Maybe he would alternate taking bites between George and the man who had had a terrible life. There were so many possibilities. Crabs wanted to hug himself.

  A car approached. Crabs recognized the car. It was the car from the house. Had the other man stolen it, or was George with him?

  George got out of the car.

  Crabs was very happy.

  * * *

  The park was empty.

  George hadn't expected the werewolves to be there, just waiting around for him, but he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. He was pumped with adrenaline and anger, and ready to take it out on somebody, even if he didn't survive the experience.

  Eugene was hanging out a couple of blocks away, huddled in his new coat. If the werewolves saw him, they'd know that he and George had planned this together. And since this was a reckless, insanely dangerous scheme that essentially came down to beating the crap out of a supernatural beast, it was best not to get Eugene killed for revenge that wasn't his own.

  If this were a real meeting with somebody who was part of a criminal empire, George would remain in the car until they arrived, instead of standing outside in the cold, looking suspicious. He didn't think the werewolves would know that, though. He didn't want to be in the vehicle if they showed up, because his weapon was a baseball bat, and you couldn't easily swing those within the confines of an affordable car owned by two elderly people who drove it once a week for church and groceries.

  He strolled through the park, trying to be subtle about his bat. He didn't expect anybody to not notice that he was carrying a bat, but he didn't want them to see that it had several silver rings, a tongue stud, and other assorted pieces of jewelry, including a necklace in the shape of a coffin, super-glued to it.

  He'd assured the girls that he would return their jewelry, and though it might be damaged, it would have serious street cred.

  If his experience with Ivan was typical of the way things worked, just touching them with silver wouldn't do anything. The silver only worked from the inside. Which meant that if one was, say, wielding a baseball bat with silver rings glued to it, one needed to hit the werewolf really frickin' hard to penetrate the skin.

  George thought he could handle that.

  Some branches rustled.

  A werewolf leapt from the trees.

  Crabs landed right next to the slide, about twenty feet from George.

  Instead of pouncing immediately, Crabs cracked his knuckles. If he could speak as a wolf, he obviously would have said something sinister, like "Well, well, well, what a tasty treat I have in store."

  George raised the bat.

  Crabs cocked his head, a bit confused.

  George could speak, so he said, "My name is George Orton. You killed my partner. Prepare to die."

  From a pure technical standpoint, it was possible to argue that the werewolves had not officially killed Lou. But in a situation where he wanted every possible speck of an advantage, he thought it made sense to have his enemy think, "Did he really just kind-of quote The Princess Bride?"

  Claws and baseball bat raised, they ran toward each other.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  George Smash

  It was, George believed, the most powerful swing ever made with a baseball bat, one capable of sending the ball soaring out of the stadium and into the heavens.

  Except that he missed.

  Crabs ducked underneath the bat, dropping to all fours just long enough to avoid being struck. George did a not-quite-as-powerful backswing, which also missed.

  Crabs jumped to his feet. It was hard to discern a wolfman's facial expressions, but George thought it translated as "mildly amused."

  The werewolf leapt at him, its front claws aimed at George. This was a poor strategic move on Crabs' part, because this time George's swing with the baseball bat did hit him, bashing Crabs in the arm.

  Half of the rings popped off.

  There was no evidence that any silver had broken through fur and skin, but still, getting hit with a baseball bat was painful, even for a werewolf.

  He didn't make a sound, though. Crabs rubbed his arm, which sadly had no protruding bone, was not twisted at a weird angle, and did not hang uselessly at his side. His arm looked fine. Crabs just stood there, staring at George as if he were an odd scientific specimen. He flexed his claws.

  George had known that super-gluing rings to a bat was not going to create the ultimate werewolf-killing weapon, but he was kind of concerned that he'd lost half of the rings on the first swing. He still had two more werewolves to beat to death after Crabs.

  "Make you a deal," said George. "Just lie on the ground and I'll smash open the back of your head. Quick and easy."

  Crabs might have laughed. Again, it was hard to tell when he was a wolf.

  "You liked that?" George asked. "I've got more jokes where that came from? Why did the werewolf—?"

  Crabs knocked George completely off his feet and against the slide. George mostly hit the flat surface, but he also struck the raised metal on the side, so it was not a pleasant feeling.

  Before he could swing the bat, Crabs pinned his arm down. George head-butted him. His forehead smashed against werewolf jaws, so this hurt George a lot more than it did Crabs. He could tell there was blood involved, even before Crabs licked it off of him.

  "Don't lick me, you asshole!" he said, trying to pull his arm free. Crabs licked George's forehead again, as if trying to get the last bit of ice cream out of the bottom of a cone.

  George really didn't need this in his life right now.

  He spat in Crabs' face. He wasn't expecting Crabs to recoil and shriek, "It burns! It burns!" but George hoped that he'd take sufficient insult to the gesture to lean back a bit. Or he'd bite a huge chunk out of George's face. One of the two.

  Crabs had no reaction. The spit dangled from his chin and he didn't even seem to notice. To be fair to Crabs, there was a lot of blood on his face, so it wasn't too weird that apparently the saliva was no big deal.

  George did another head-butt. The first one had simply been a random move to hit whatever was in front of him, but this one was more targeted. He'd see how Crabs liked having George's rock-hard skull smash into his injured snout.

  Crabs did not like that at all. An extra bonus spurt of blood came out, getting in George's left eye, and Crabs howled with pain. George's bat-wielding arm was still pinned, but he used his other hand to grab Crabs' nose and give it a vicious Three Stooges-style twist, though without the accompanying sound effects.

  Crabs bit down, nearly taking off two of George's fingers. George tried to jab his index finger into Crabs' eye, while blinking blood out of his own eye. It wasn't the finger-plunging-into-the-juicy-orb result that he was going for, but he got him next to the eye, which probably didn't hurt much but definitely startled the werewolf.

  Then George grabbed Crabs' ear, crushing it in his hand while he tried to rip it right off the werewolf's head. He dug his fingernails in deep and squeezed as if he were making a ball out of tin foil.

  Apparently that was as much agony as Crabs could handle all at once. He moved away from the slide, clutching at his nose with one furry hand and his ear with the other. He was still behaving in a relatively calm manner—no thrashing around in pain—but he was clearly hurting.

  Time to go on the offensive and make one-third of his werewolf problem go away.

  George raised the bat as if waiting for a pitch, then swung, bashing Crabs' in the side. Crabs let out a yelp of surprise and pain.

  Blood dripped from one of the rings, and a small spot on Crabs' side was sizzling. George had broken the skin.

  This time, Crabs' expression seemed to say, What the hell did you just do to me? This isn't fair!

  George bashed him again, hitting him on the other side. More sizzli
ng. A blow to Crabs' shoulder didn't seem to break the skin, but still, it was a very violent baseball bat hit to the shoulder.

  The next swing missed, as did the one after that, but Crabs held up his arm to defend himself against the next one and took a hit directly to his right elbow. The tongue-stud came off the bat and remained imbedded in Crabs' arm.

  His attempt to pluck out the stud was hampered by George smacking him in the head.

  Smoke was billowing from three or four different spots on Crabs, and now his arm was hanging limp at his side. If that stud stayed in there long enough, maybe it would burn all the way through and his arm would fall off.

  George raised the bat over his head, prepared to deliver the killing blow. Or maybe the dozens of blows leading up to the killing blow—George was cool with it either way.

  He was no stranger to anger, and in fact his happiness level rarely rose above a level of moderate annoyance, but this was the kind of rage where it felt like he had stepped outside of his body, where he didn't care how much damage he was doing to himself with each blow. The only thing that mattered was getting revenge for what they'd done to Lou.

  Unfortunately for Crabs, Lou would have been the one to tell George that he'd gone far enough.

  He brought the bat down as hard as he could.

  This was not as hard as he could even a minute ago, but it was still pretty goddamned hard.

  Crabs blocked the swing with his hand, pulverizing his palm. Yet he still was able to yank the bat out of George's hand and fling it aside.

  Fine. Whatever. George didn't need a weapon.

  He rained blows upon the werewolf with his fists, aiming for the smoking spots. Crabs fought back, getting in a couple of savage swipes with his claws that George couldn't even...no, wait, he definitely felt that one.

  George punched him in the face and chest, over and over. He couldn't even imagine what he was doing to the hand that had already been injured. It would probably have to be amputated. He didn't care.

  Now Crabs' eyes were wide with panic. Fucker probably never thought a human could beat him in a one-on-one fight. His wounds from the silver had stopped sizzling though, except for the elbow that still had the stud in it.

  George threw a punch that hit Crabs directly in the center of his nose, splitting the two halves completely apart.

  That seemed to take the homicidal urges out of Crabs, all at once. He simply stopped fighting and walked away, stumbling, looking as if he might fall right over with any step.

  George kind of felt sorry for him.

  Not really.

  Crabs staggered over to the teeter-totter, which was like a gift from the Gods of Wanting To See Werewolves Get The Shit Beaten Out Of Them Even More, because he was at the down end.

  Was that end the teeter or the totter?

  Didn't matter.

  George couldn't run, but he got over to the other end with amazing haste for a guy who was so messed up, and slammed it down to the ground.

  Perfect.

  The end of the teeter-totter struck Crabs so hard that his head should have jettisoned off his body like a rocket.

  It didn't, though. Didn't even break his neck. That Crabs was one resilient son of a bitch.

  He stumbled back in the direction from where he came, headed toward the slide. His arm changed back to human, then one of his legs, then his head.

  "You done?" asked George.

  Crabs walked right into the slide but stayed upright. He looked over at George, appearing disoriented and confused. "That was immature."

  George walked over and picked up his bat. "Where's the girl?"

  Crabs spat out a thick blob of red mucus. "No."

  "That wasn't a yes or no question."

  "My last words will not be betrayal."

  "Then maybe they don't have to be your last words."

  Crabs smiled. "Ah. The dealmaker arrives."

  "I'm not trying to cut a deal. Just trying to give you a chance to make things right."

  "By turning her over to you?" Crabs spat out another red blob. "That feels morally unsound."

  "Okay," said George, walking over to him. "I didn't want you to live anyway."

  Crabs changed his arm back, grabbed George by the throat, then bashed him against the slide. He bashed him against it again, and then once more, and George started to worry that he might actually be paralyzed.

  "Drop the bat," said Crabs, digging his claws into George's neck.

  George dropped the bat. His blinding rage disappeared almost instantly, replaced by the most intense fear he'd ever experienced. He'd been close to death before, but this was close, and suddenly he didn't want to die.

  "You do not get to kill me," said Crabs. "I am the killer. I will heal. You will not. My question is, do you want me to piss in your mouth before or after you are dead?"

  George was too frightened to answer the question.

  Crabs tightened his grip on George's neck. "Feeling less brave now? I have another question for you. When I lap up your sweet, rich blood, is it more disturbing when I'm a wolf or when I'm a human?" Crabs bent down and licked some blood off of George's chin. "What do you think?"

  Human. Definitely human. But George didn't think he wanted an actual spoken answer to the question.

  "For me, the flavor is better as a wolf, but I like the way you die inside when I do it as a human. Keep bleeding for me, George." George turned his head. Crabs continued to lick him, tracing a line down to George's ear.

  "Shall I whisper sweet nothings into your ear?" Crabs asked. "You mangled my ear, but I will treat yours with love and caring."

  "Go ahead, lick my ear," said George. "I don't give a crap at this point."

  Instead, Crabs began to lick some blood that had gotten into George's hair. Or at least George thought that's what he was licking out of his hair. It didn't really matter.

  "Your scalp is delicious," said Crabs.

  Did thoughts like that actually flow through his mind, or did he just say weird shit to get a reaction?

  George supposed it didn't make any difference. Either way, he was never going to be able to erase the sensation of this lunatic's tongue sliding down his hairline from his memory. This was "wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat" kind of stuff right here.

  But, hey, at least he was concerned about horrible memories in the future, because if Crabs kept licking just a bit further, and didn't immediately choose to rip George's windpipe open when he moved...

  George suddenly moved his head.

  Crabs did not rip out his windpipe.

  Instead, he accidentally licked the cold metal slide.

  There was a split second where Crabs just looked annoyed that George had moved while he was being licked, but then Crabs realized that his tongue was stuck to the slide. He gave a quick gentle test tug before full comprehension dawned upon him.

  If Crabs didn't still have his claws around George's neck, George would have loved nothing more than to sit back, point and laugh, and see how this all played out. Sadly, he was still in a dire predicament.

  Crabs' creepy dead eyes went wide with panic.

  George grabbed his wrist with both hands and pried his claws away from his neck, then rolled off the slide, landing on a patch of ice instead of soft snow.

  This wasn't going to last long. The way to get your tongue unstuck from cold metal was to pour warm water on it, and Crabs had plenty of warm blood flowing to suit his needs.

  George retrieved his bat.

  Crabs transformed all the way back into a wolfman, which ended up just giving him a longer tongue stuck to the slide.

  The werewolf yanked his head away. With all of the blood, it was difficult to say exactly how much tongue he left behind, but it was some, at least.

  Tongue mutilation was clearly more disturbing to Crabs than nose mutilation.

  George hit him with the bat.

  Then again.

  And again.

  More of the jewelry flew off the
bat, but at least a couple of the rings did their job, because there was some definite sizzling going on.

  Somewhere around the tenth or eleventh hit, George realized that he was crying. Oh well. The only witness would be dead soon.

  Crabs had stopped trying to defend himself.

  And then, one hit with the baseball bat got him in the center of the forehead. The silver coffin necklace cracked the front of his skull.

  Crabs didn't make a sound. He just pitched forward, dead.

  "Yeah, that's right," said George. "Stay down."

  George frowned. He really should have said something better after sort-of partially avenging Lou's death. If he'd believed that Lou was watching him from the afterlife, Lou would be shaking his head right now. "Yeah, that's right, stay down?" Seriously? Screw you, George.

  He returned to the car, turned on the headlights, then looked around the battle zone for the silver rings that had fallen off. He only found one before giving it up as a lost cause.

  He didn't feel particularly vindicated, but then again, there were still two werewolves left to kill.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A Bad Time To Be George

  Being a werewolf was fantastic in every possible way except for the destruction of clothing. And because of that, you couldn't really carry a cell phone in your pocket, because the pockets might rip and you'd lose your phone. Therefore, Shane and Robyn couldn't text Crabs like civilized people, and instead had agreed to drive by the park if he hadn't returned with news in a reasonable amount of time.

  They had not specifically defined "reasonable amount of time." It had only been half an hour, and Shane didn't want George to see them driving past the park.

  "He probably fell asleep," said Robyn.

  "I don't think Crabs sleeps."

  "It's been too long. George isn't worth this."

  "I disagree."

  "You know that Crabs isn't going to report back, right? If he sees George, he'll kill him."

  "Crabs wouldn't do that."

  "Really?"

  Shane shifted in his seat. "No, not really. You're right. Let's check on him."