“It’s not a circle yet!”
George spun the steering wheel to the right and they rounded the corner. A car was parked on the side of the street. Ivan leapt up onto it, ran over the top, then jumped back onto the street without missing a beat. Showing off. Fine. He could do somersaults for all George cared.
Ivan began to run down the center of the street, not seeming to care who saw him. If that’s how he wanted to be, no problem, then George didn’t care who saw them run his wolf ass over.
“So what’s the plan if we catch up to him?” Lou asked.
“If you can think of one, shout it out. Right now I just don’t want to lose him.”
Ivan was slowing down a bit. Was he getting tired? George imagined a great big red target on the werewolf’s back as the distance ahead of them dwindled to just a few van-lengths.
Now one van-length. If George gunned the engine, Ivan would be part of their front fender. Werewolf go splat.
And then...Ivan sped up again, racing away from the van and turning another corner.
“Damn it!” George pounded his fist against the dashboard.
“It’s just a game to him,” Lou said. “Following him is ridiculous.”
“You know what?” George asked, applying the brake. “You’re absolutely right.”
Let the werewolf go. Take the heat. Why drive around after him, which was obviously what Ivan wanted them to do, and fall into another trap? Why risk his, Lou’s, and Michele’s lives just to salvage his own bruised ego? Why be a complete and total suicidal idiot about this?
George Orton was no quitter. When a job needed to get done, he saw it through to the end. Abandoning a task because it was too difficult was something reserved for pathetic losers. He lived his entire life by that code.
That said, when there was a supernatural beast involved, fuck it. Smart people quit.
“Let’s get out of this place,” said George. “We’ll let Ricky explain what happened and just lay low for a while.”
“I like that plan,” said Lou. “That’s pure genius.”
“Are you in favor?” George asked Michele.
“I get a vote?”
“Not one that counts, but I figured I’d ask.”
“Yes, I’m very much in favor of not following the werewolf around.”
“Fine. It’s settled.” George considered offering Lou an extremely large sum of money in exchange for calling Ricky to deliver the news, but no. He’d been the one to screw up, and wanted to make sure that a chant of “I told him not to do it!” was not part of the initial confession.
Ivan, several blocks ahead, ran back into their line of sight and stopped in the middle of the road, facing them.
“Oh, look,” said George. “The little fellow is mad that we’re not playing Follow the Leader anymore.”
Ivan began to walk toward them. Without a break in his stride, he transformed back into a human, just as quickly as he’d become a wolfman. His shredded clothes hung off his body.
“I have to admit, that fashion statement works for him,” said George. “Not a lot of people could pull that off.”
“We’re still driving away, right?” Lou asked.
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely.”
George watched Ivan’s continued approach. Ivan was moving quickly, but not yet running. He was now close enough that George could see the smug grin on his face. Bastard.
“So if I wait for him to get closer, and then floor the gas pedal, do you think he’ll change back into a wolf and then jump on the roof of the van?” George asked.
“Yes,” said Lou.
“Definitely,” said Michele.
They were probably right. And, having just made what he considered to be a wise decision, George wasn’t inclined to put them back in danger...but if Ivan was right in front of them, in human form, just walking...
“We need to get out of here,” said Michele.
George shook his head. “I’m not running away from him.”
“But we just decided--”
“We decided not to chase him. That’s not the same as running away.”
Ivan continued walking. He cracked his knuckles, as if preparing himself to deliver a substantial ass beating.
“What could we do that he won’t expect?” George asked. “Lou, maybe if you shoot him a couple of times while I try to hit him with the van...?”
“We can’t start shooting! It’s a residential neighborhood!”
“We’ve been driving around chasing a werewolf! We’ve already attracted some attention!”
“That doesn’t mean we should attract more! We still need to think about the future, George! We need to get out of here, ditch the van, ditch the girl, and keep ourselves out of an interrogation room!”
Ivan was now only about fifty feet from the van. Still moving at the same pace. Still had the same grin.
When he was twenty feet away, George floored the gas pedal. The tires squealed, and the van shot forward. George tried to focus on Ivan as if staring at him through a giant magnifying glass, watching intently for the slightest hint of movement that might indicate if he was going to dodge to the right or to the left, so that George could turn in that direction and bash him.
Ivan transformed again, his entire body at once. With one jump, he was on the hood of the van, and with a second he was on the roof.
George slammed on the brakes, trying to dislodge him. The werewolf didn’t go anywhere. There was a loud metallic thump on the roof as Ivan punched or kicked it, followed by two more. Apparently he couldn’t punch through the top of a van in one blow. That was a plus, at least.
“He’s on the roof!” Lou shouted.
“I know he’s on the goddamn roof!”
George floored the accelerator yet again, then slammed the brake a second later. He tried that several more times, jerking the van forward a few feet at a time in a desperate attempt to get the werewolf off.
There were three more quick thumps on the roof, but light ones, like a polite knock.
Lou saw what was about to happen before George did, but was still only able to get as far as “Oh sh--” before a pair of oversized wolfman feet came down upon the windshield and the entire thing exploded, spraying safety glass everywhere. Michele screamed and threw her hands over her face. Glass rained down on George’s lap and he let go of the steering wheel in panic. The van veered to the right.
Ivan leapt onto the front hood. Lou scrambled to use his gun, but Ivan lunged forward and plucked it out of his hand. He gave them a fanged grin, and then jumped back onto the roof.
The van bounced up onto the curb and George quickly grabbed the steering wheel again and straightened their course.
“He’s got my gun!” Lou shouted.
“Quit saying things that I already know!”
George applied the brakes. “You two, go back and get in the cage. He can’t bend the bars or he’d have done it before, so you’ll be safe in there!”
“We won’t be safe! Now we’re up against a werewolf with a gun!”
“You’ll be safer than you are now!”
“Everybody just calm down!” Michele brushed some glass out of her hair. They sat in silence for a long, tense moment. “Ivan?”
No response.
“Ivan? It’s Michele. I understand that you have a problem with these guys, and that’s totally cool, and you’re completely justified in anything you want to do to them, but I’m an innocent bystander in this whole thing, so if you could let me go, that would be really nice!”
They waited. Ivan said nothing, and there were no sounds to indicate movement above.
“Ivan? I know you can hear me. I think it’s terrible that they locked you in there. It was wrong of them. There’s no excuse. If you could just give me some sort of sign that it’s okay for me to get out of the van...”
Now there was some movement, the sounds of weight shifting above them. Finally, Ivan spoke: “I just want to be liked, you know?”
George groaned. The werewolf still had the energy to be a smart-ass. This was not good. “Hey, Ivan,” he said, “it’s crazy for you to stay up on the roof like that. Somebody’s going to see and call animal control. You win! You proved that you’re far superior, and I look like a total douche. We aren’t going to follow you anymore. Just run off and make your escape.”