Holy shit. Had he actually shot somebody upstairs?
Ivan wrenched the shotgun out of the man’s hands and shoved the barrel in his face. The man held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot!”
The werewolf seemed to consider that. Ivan moved the shotgun barrel away from the man’s face, fumbled a bit with his claws on the trigger, then fired into one of the man’s upraised hands, blowing it completely off. The man’s shriek was silenced a moment later as Ivan tossed the gun aside and swiped off his entire lower jaw.
Before the impact of that could even sink in, Ivan pulled the man forward by the front of his shirt, opened his mouth wide, and then bit down on what remained of the man’s face. Ivan spit the bloody chunk onto the counter, let the man’s corpse fall, and then turned toward George.
Ivan held up his index finger and wiggled the talon.
The message was clear: That’s one...
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Massacre at the Cotton Mouse Tavern
George and Lou both got up. Despite the agony, George was able to find his voice, if not his wit. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”
Ivan beckoned. Bring it on.
But instead of waiting for George, Ivan ran over to the formerly dancing couple, pouncing on them with his claws and fangs bared. The girl died first, unless the old man was already dead when the werewolf got there, which was entirely possible. Ivan didn’t try to be inventive--he just ripped their bodies apart in a matter of seconds, tearing off flesh with such speed and intensity that George couldn’t be certain which piece came from which victim.
Lou patted his pocket, then frantically looked around on the floor, presumably for his switchblade. Had he lost it in the fall? Lou quickly gave up the search and went for the cross.
About half of the patrons had made it out of the bar already, but there was a bottleneck at the doorway. Panicked drunk people shoving each other was not conducive to an efficient exit.
An overweight bearded man pushed a skinny girl out of the way, his hand cupping one of her small breasts in the process. She bashed a beer bottle against the side of his head, spraying glass and Bud Light everywhere. The bearded man fell, taking the two people in front of him down with him.
Another man, clean-shaven, his eyes wide with terror, had apparently retained his sense of chivalry and pulled a blonde woman out of the way before she could get trampled.
It didn’t surprise George that Ivan went after the nice guy.
Ivan leapt off the two mangled dancer corpses, knocked another man out of the way, and grabbed the nice guy’s arm. As the guy cried out and tried to pull away, Ivan gave it a brutal yank. It wasn’t enough to rip off the limb, but it was clearly enough to pop his arm out of its socket.
With the second yank, the skin split. The arm remained attached. A third yank, and the arm came most of the way off. Ivan quickly finished the job with his teeth.
Lou crawled around on the floor, searching unsuccessfully for the cross.
George slammed his foot down on the wooden chair, breaking off the leg that had bashed his kidney and creating a makeshift wooden stake. Even if it didn’t kill Ivan, they might be able to injure him enough to finally subdue the creature.
Ivan shoved the one-armed nice guy toward George. The guy, spurting blood and almost completely drained of color, dropped to the floor before he could get in George’s way. George leapt over him, tried to fake a swing to the left, but took a werewolf fist to the face and stumbled backwards, almost but not quite losing his footing.
Ivan snarled and tossed the severed arm aside. There was so much gore in his fur that it was hard to say for certain, but his gunshot wounds no longer seemed to be bleeding.
Most of the bar patrons had finally made their way out of the place. Aside from the bearded guy and the two people on the floor with him, only a man and woman who looked to be in their early twenties remained at the doorway. They were presumably a romantic couple, since they were dressed in matching cutesy light green shirts.
One of the people who’d been trampled had apparently made it outside to safety. The other, a middle-aged lady with pigtails, lay dead on the floor, her body broken and bloody.
Ivan ran to the doorway, bashed the cutesy man out of the way with his right hand, then grabbed the cutesy woman with his left. Instead of killing her, he tossed her over with her lover, then pulled the door closed.
The bearded guy scrambled away, his ass dragging along the floor as he did a clumsy version of a crab-walk. George ran at Ivan again, focusing all of his attention on Ivan’s heart, but the werewolf knocked him aside once more. George’s landing was not gentle.
As he got up, he noticed two other people in the bar, hiding underneath the table of a booth. Assuming the nice guy with one arm hadn’t bled to death yet, that left eight potential victims in there, not counting George and Lou. Ivan might very well make his body count goal.
George caught a glimpse of silver as Lou found the cross and quickly palmed it. Lou got up and wobbled a bit on shaky legs, but didn’t fall.
“Hey, Ivan!” George shouted. “You hit like a ferret!”
Ivan let out what was clearly meant to be a derisive laugh. George tried to think of an animal comparison more rage inducing than “ferret” but nothing immediately came to mind.
George had hoped that Ivan might change back just to offer up a snappy retort, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked around the bar, still smiling, as if joining George in tallying up his potential victims.
Ivan’s ear perked up a bit as he noticed the people under the table in the booth.
The man and woman who were dressed alike grabbed each other’s hand and sprinted away from Ivan, running toward a plate-glass window covered by neon signs. Ivan followed, taking down the man before they made it halfway across the bar. The woman bellowed and desperately pulled on her boyfriend or husband’s arm, refusing to let go of him even as Ivan slashed at his legs and back.
“Just leave me!” the man shouted, gurgling the words. George winced as Ivan ripped out a particularly meaty strip of his leg, exposing bone.
George picked up another chair.
Lou moved cautiously toward the werewolf, not revealing the cross. His breathing was as heavy as if he’d run a marathon and George hoped that he wouldn’t have a massive heart attack before he made it to Ivan.
Ivan extended all ten of his fingers, then slammed his claws deep into the man’s neck all at once. The woman finally let go of her lover and ran for the window again.
The two people who’d been knocked down by the bearded guy--another man and woman, also in their twenties, but hopefully not a couple considering their complete lack of interest in assisting each other in a moment of crisis--got the door open again. It slammed into the man’s shin and he let out a grunt of pain as the woman opened it, but they both rushed through the doorway and out of the bar.
Two more survivors. If this upset Ivan, he didn’t show it. The woman who’d just lost her boyfriend or husband ran straight at the window, arms extended.
Lou took another hesitant step toward Ivan. The werewolf’s attention was directed toward the running woman, but it was pretty hard for a guy the size of Lou to sneak up on somebody in a wide-open bar.
George threw the chair as hard as he possibly could, so hard that he thought he might have injured his shoulder. His intent was for the chair to smash directly into Ivan’s head, distracting him from the woman long enough for her to escape, during which time George would figure out how to deal with a murderous werewolf whose attention was now on him. The chair didn’t hit Ivan’s head, but it smashed into his side with enough force to stop him in his tracks.
The woman struck the window. The glass did not shatter. She bounced off, careened to the side, and doubled over in pain.
Taking advantage of Ivan’s distraction, Lou picked up his pace and held the cross like a dagger. George hurriedly grabbed another chair to keep Ivan’s attention focused on him.
“Did that hurt, you hairy bitch? Did you get a boo-boo?”
Lou was only a couple of steps away from being able to slam the cross into his back. They were, of course, assuming that the silver cross would do a lot more damage than just stabbing him with a regular old sharpened object, and if that turned out not to be the case, Lou was in a lot of danger.