Wolf Hunt: A Horror Novel, page 4
The woman sprayed the dog. It yelped, but the pain wasn’t enough to keep it from tearing out a second piece of the attendant’s throat.
Lou sped forward. “Get the lady!” George said.
Lou pulled up next to her, George opened his door, and she jumped inside the van, squeezing onto George’s lap. He pulled the door closed most of the way, then threw it open again, bashing yet another Doberman in the face. Tires squealing, they sped out of the gas station and back onto the road.
The woman began to sob. “You’ll be okay,” George assured her. “We’ll get you to the emergency room. They’ll fix you up.”
“Did you see what they did to that man? He...he...I don’t think we can help him.”
“That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lou said. “They couldn’t all go rabid at once like that, could they? I mean, do you think they escaped from a medical center, or something?”
“No idea. Not a clue. Jesus.” George hurt in several places and wanted to check out the extent of his injuries, but he couldn’t do it with the woman in his lap. He did glance at his wrist, which had a couple puncture wounds, but the blood was oozing instead of spraying, so he figured he’d be okay.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
George cursed under his breath. Ivan kicked at the bars of his cage once more and smiled at the startled sound of the woman’s gasp. “My name is Ivan. Lou is driving. You’re sitting on George’s lap. They’re driving me to my death. Because you know this, I assume you have to die now, too.”
George pointed a warning finger. “Shut up.”
“Oh, I’m done. No, wait! I missed the part about you thinking I’m a werewolf.”
“I said, shut up.”
“What are you going to do, come back here and beat me up in front of a witness? That doesn’t seem very smart. When you kill her, are you going to snap her neck or drag her death out slowly?”
“One more time—”
“I think you should drag it out slowly.”
“Enough!” George shouted. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to get rid of a sudden migraine. He hadn’t had one in over a year, and he’d been in a lot of stressful situations during that time.
“Don’t take it out on me,” Ivan said. “I’m not the one who let her into the car, Mr. Intellect.”
George took a deep breath, willing himself to remain calm. The situation was screwed up enough already without him letting Ivan send him into a rage. He had to ignore the werewolf, keep himself from losing his mind, assure the woman she was in no danger, and think this whole thing through.
They drove in silence. The woman looked as if she wanted to lunge for the door handle. They’d almost definitely let her go free soon, hopefully outside a hospital, but George couldn’t have her making any wild escape attempts until this was all figured out. He reached over and locked the door.
“So, now what?” she asked.
CHAPTER 5
QUESTIONING WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED
“How’s your shoulder?” George asked.
“It’s fine,” the woman insisted. “Just let me go, okay? I won’t say anything, I promise.”
“What’s your name?”
“Seriously, who am I going to tell? You saved my life. I wouldn’t turn you in.”
“Ma’am, just tell me your name.”
She hesitated. “Michele.” The way she said it, George thought she might be giving a fake name, but that didn’t matter—he just needed something to call her.
“Michele, we’re not going to hurt you. We’re FBI agents, and the man behind us is a federal prisoner. We’re just transporting him to a maximum-security facility.”
“The FBI doesn’t transport people in cages.”
“Okay, look, forget about the guy in the cage for a minute. We’re not going to hurt you, and we’re not kidnapping you. We’re going to take you to a hospital.”
“If you’re not kidnapping me, then let me go.”
George’s headache became more intense. “Fine. We’re kidnapping you for now. But we’re not going to hurt you.”
“You’ll be locked in here with me pretty soon,” Ivan said. “Assuming they decide it’s okay for you to live.”
“Can we muzzle him?” Lou asked.
“No! That’s exactly what he wants us to try to do! Let’s just get situated and figure this out.” George gently slid Michele off his lap, putting her between him and Lou. Though he liked having cute, young women on his lap, now wasn’t the time. It was a tight, uncomfortable fit on the seat with them squished together, but he didn’t plan to keep her around much longer.
“Are you going to bleed to death?” George asked.
Michele shook her head. The shoulder of her shirt was soaked with blood. Thankfully, though the wound was grisly, it didn’t seem to be that deep. “If you’re going to force me to ride with you, do you at least have some Band-Aids?”
“Yeah, we’ve got some stuff. If you reach behind the seat, there’s a small brown bag.” George pressed his wrist against his pants as Michele reached back and got his bag. He ran the index finger of his other hand over his chest. The bite wasn’t too bad, and the lines where the dog’s nails had raked across his chest felt more like scrapes than gashes. The traces of gasoline didn’t exactly feel pleasant on his wounds, but he was a tough guy; he could handle it. George gestured to the upcoming exit. “Go ahead and get back on Tamiami Trail for now.”
Lou nodded and took the exit.
Opening the bag, he dug through his dirty clothes and pulled out the first aid kit. He handed the bag back to Michele, and she returned it to its spot behind the seat. The kit was small, but it had enough supplies to take care of various on-the-job injuries one might sustain when said job involved dealing with unsavory, and occasionally violent, individuals. George took out a handful of bandages and gave half to Michele. They tended to their wounds.
There were so many things to discuss, George wasn’t sure where to begin, so he started with the first thing that popped into his mind. Glaring at his partner, he said, “Why the hell did I have to keep telling you not to shoot?”
“Because you had a great big dog trying to rip your guts out.”
“What if there’d been a spark?”
“Dogs don’t produce sparks when a bullet goes into them.”
“What if you’d missed?”
“I wasn’t gonna miss.”
“Lou, you’re a shit shot!”
“Watch your mouth around the lady. The dog was five feet away. I wasn’t gonna miss. I’d rather blow us all up than watch you get eaten by a dog.’”
George considered that for a moment. “Okay, fair point. That’s probably true. But the next time a flammable substance is all over the ground, leave the gun in your pocket. Got it?”
“Screw you. The next time gas is involved, I’m going to find a frickin’ flamethrower.”
“Is this really the most important thing you two have to argue about?” Michele asked.
“Sorry. And Lou, I’m sorry, too. But when I make an important judgment call like that, it’s very frustrating to have you—”
“You can’t keep talking after the apology.”
George closed his eyes, once again rubbing his forehead.
“How are your bites?” Lou asked.
“They’re fine. Hurt like hell, but they’re fine.” He inspected his wrist wound again. It was badly swollen, but the trickle of blood had stopped. The dog was polite enough not to sink its teeth into an artery. “I can’t believe I hurt those dogs. I never even spanked Quincy for going potty off the paper.”
“You did what you had to do.”
“Did I?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Lou said. “If you’re going to have a dark night of the soul over those dogs, save it for when I’m not around.”
They’d had countless lively debates over the years, but George and Lou rarely bickered. Of course, they also rarely found themselves in a situation so far out of their control.
“I apologize,” George said, wrapping a large bandage around his wrist. “I’m not going to say anything else.” He turned his attention to Michele. “Do you know anything? Any idea what made those dogs go berserk?”
“I don’t have the slightest clue.”
“Didn’t think so.” With Michele on the seat, there really wasn’t room for him to turn and face Ivan, so he adjusted the rear-view mirror to give himself a good look at their captive. “Ivan, what do you know about this?”
“Why, whatever would I know?”
“You can drop the smart-ass tone. Tell me what just happened out there.”
“Baffling, wasn’t it? All those dogs going nuts. What an odd occurrence. I guess Lou was right, there must have been some sort of problem at a local medical facility, causing a bunch of rabid dogs to escape and go on a rampage. Unfortunate timing for you two, huh? I’m glad I was safely locked in this cage. You should probably report the incident to your superiors.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Lou said.
“He’s not right.” George tried looking menacing, but it was difficult with only a reflection in a tiny mirror. “We get hired to drive a werewolf across the state. That’s weird enough. Then we stop for gas, and every dog in town comes after us—dogs that were not rabid, because several had obviously just pulled away from their owners.”
Ivan smiled. “A riddle wrapped in a puzzle cloaked in an enigma.”
“What do you know about this?”
“Well, George, I suppose the first possibility is that I have friends who train vicious dogs for a living, and that I cleverly surmised you would need to stop at that particular town to get fuel for your van, after I cleverly surmised you wouldn’t be taking the most efficient route to get from Miami to Tampa. Pretty brilliant of me, although to make this plan truly foolproof, I’d need an army of dogs waiting in all the neighboring towns. Let’s stop someplace else for another tank of gas and see if that’s the case.”
“I want to know how you made that happen.”
“It wasn’t me. That would lack credibility.”
“I’m dead serious, Ivan. How did you make those dogs lose their minds? Or do you just give off some kind of scent, or something?”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to pin this on me. That’s as silly as the idea of me being a werewolf.”
“Look, asshole, wolves are dogs—”
“Oooooh, look who knows his biology!”
“—and there’s no way this is a coincidence.”
“Well, then, if it’s not a coincidence, I must have the power to control dogs. Or at least make them go nuts. Is that what you want to hear?”
“If it’s the truth.”
Ivan let out a high-pitched, incredulous laugh. “Listen to you! Has the big bad thug-for-hire opened his mind to the possibility of the paranormal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, but two hours ago, if I’d said you shouldn’t mess with me because I’ve got the power to send a bunch of killer dogs after you, you would have made fun of me. You would’ve been all, ‘Oh, dude, if you’re trying to scare me with your doggie powers, don’t do it from inside a cage,’ right?”
“You were the one insisting the whole werewolf thing was ridiculous.”
“Yes, but I was also the one who had something to lose by being a werewolf. You came at it from neutral ground. Now you’re a believer, and all it took was a few nasty dog bites. I’m proud of you, George. This has opened a whole new world of excitement for you.”
“I didn’t say I was a believer.”
“You implied it. That’s all I need to declare victory.”
George glanced at Michele. “I don’t really believe he’s a werewolf.”
Michele said nothing. She looked more concerned about being murdered by kidnappers than whether he believed in lycanthropes.
“Let’s take a vote,” Ivan said. “I believe I’m a werewolf. George reluctantly believes I’m a werewolf. What about you, Lou?”
“I believe you need to stop talking.”
“Or what?”
“Or else.”
“That’s the best you’ve got? Really? You know what, I’m embarrassed to be your prisoner. Flat-out humiliated. It was cool for a while, when I thought a couple of scary mob guys had me, but you two buffoons? I might as well be in the hands of the—”
“Enough!”
“Don’t you want to know what non-threatening group I was going to compare you to?”
“One more word,” George said. “Just one more word, and I will come back there and beat the snot out of you.”
“Bet you won’t. So what about you, Michele? We’ve got two votes in favor and one non-committal. Do you think I could possibly be a werewolf?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you think. I’m the only one who knows for certain. So, do you think I’m a werewolf?”
“Sure, whatever.”
“Three votes in favor. That’s a majority, even if Lou changes his cowardly cop-out vote to ‘no.’ Looks like I’m a fuckin’ werewolf with the power of dog control, ladies and gentlemen. Now, what are we going to do about that?”
“Not a thing,” George said. “The plan stays the same.”
“The plan to deliver me to Mr. Dewey in Tampa so I can bite and transform him? Come on, guys, there’s no need to be discrete around our new friend Michele, is there? After all, you’re planning to kill her.”
“No one is getting killed.”
“Nobody except poor Michele.”
“Don’t listen to him,” George told her.
“Right, don’t listen to the guy in the cage,” Ivan said. “Clearly, there can be no wrongdoing in a situation that involves people in cages. Maybe you’ll be lucky, and their plans will revolve around slavery instead of murder, but either way, I’m not getting a strong ‘drop you off at the hospital and everything will be all right’ vibe from this, are you?”
“Seriously, don’t listen to him,” George said. “We’re going to let you go.”
“Then why haven’t you done it already?” Ivan asked. “She asked to be let go as soon as she saw me. True gentlemen would have honored the poor, doomed victim’s request.”
“We’ve got shit to figure out first.”
“Then figure it out. It sounds like I’m the only one trying to figure anything out, to be completely honest. Oooooh, I hope if you decide to rape her, you take it outside—there are some things I just don’t enjoy watching.”
“We should just let her out,” Lou said. “She won’t tell.”
“Of course she won’t,” Ivan said. “It’s not like she’s seen anything memorable.”
“Get off at the next exit,” George told Lou.
“Why?”
“Because we need some answers.”
“No, no, this is an ‘ignorance is bliss’ deal. Let’s leave it alone.”
“I’m not comfortable with not knowing what’s going on when things are this severely screwed up. We left behind a bunch of injured dogs and a dead gas station guy—that’ll be on the news. We need a full understanding of what we’re dealing with.”
“We shouldn’t have brought the girl.”
“Yeah, I know. We weren’t thinking right.”
“I never said to bring her in the first place.”
“Okay, fine, I wasn’t thinking right. The dog teeth in my skin messed with my thought processes. Are you happy?”
“Just saying.”
“They’re going to kiiiiiiiiiilllllllll you,” Ivan sang out from the back.
“We should call Ricky, at least,” Lou said. “Let him know what happened.”
George sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Damn it.”
He took out his cell phone and pulled up Rick the Prick from his “recent contacts” list. Ricky answered on the first ring. “Hiya, sweetie. How’s the werewolf doing?”
“He’s fine. But we had a pretty big problem.”
“Fleas? Hairballs?”
“Ricky, don’t make me—”
“All right, all right. Jeez, you sound tense. What’s the problem?”
“We stopped to get gas, and about a dozen dogs attacked us. They’d gone crazy. One of them bashed itself half to death against the van.”
“You for real?”
“Yeah. Lou had to shoot two of them. The guy who worked there, they ripped his goddamn neck open.”
“No kidding? He died?”
“Unless you can live with most of your throat gone.”
“Wow. I’ve never seen someone get mauled to death by dogs before. I mean, I’ve seen videos, but never in real life. You guys all right?”
“I’m kind of bit up, but I’ll be okay.”
“You should put some antiseptic on the bites.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. Any idea why a bunch of dogs would suddenly attack us like that?”
“Who do you think you’re calling, National Geographic? How would I know?”
“We think the werewolf was responsible.”
“Uh, by ‘werewolf,’ you mean the guy that nutcase Bateman thinks is a werewolf, right?”
“Yeah, him.”
“This is a joke, isn’t it? You’re trying to get back at me for giving you the crappy werewolf assignment. Y’know, there are a lot worse places you could be. A guy at a sewage treatment plant isn’t paying his protection money. Can you believe that? A sewage treatment plant. How do you get protection money out of them in the first place? The world is crazy. You could be on your way to the turd processing factory right now, so don’t—”
“Are you done?”
“I don’t think I was supposed to say anything about the sewage place. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Enough, Ricky! We need to know if we should keep going where we’re going, or if we should get off the road for a while until things blow over.”
“Oh, you should definitely keep going. They want the werewolf this evening at the latest. Where did you say the dogs were?”
“It’s a small town called Hachiholata or something like that.”
“Can you spell it for me?”
