“Whoa! What’re you doing back there, George?” Ivan asked. “That sounds like it hurt.”
George flexed his fingers. His shoulder was throbbing but his arm hurt much less now. One dislocated shoulder fixed.
“You got any aspirin?” George asked.
“Sorry.”
“No problem. So where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“It’s a surprise because you have no idea.”
“Hey, George, what was that chick’s name I killed? Diane, right? Do you think her kids are home from school yet? I bet the older one got a hundred percent on his spelling test--no, let’s say a ninety-five--and he ran all the way home because he was so excited. And he rushed inside, thinking he was going to get a big hug and a kiss and maybe a new video game, and instead he just found a dead mommy.”
George clenched his fists and didn’t respond.
“What’s the matter, George? Decided to stop playing along with our clever repartee? I saw the way you looked when I cut her throat. That was a life-changing moment for poor little Georgie. If you were going to live long enough to experience nightmares again, you’d have a doozy of a bad dream over that.”
A trickle of what might have been pus was leaking from one of Michele’s eyes. She looked totally out of it.
“Still nothing to say?” Ivan asked. “You know, George, all that stuff you’ve been saying about how me talking is a sign of insecurity? That’s how I see your lack of talking. What’s the matter? Is the big bad thug all sad because of the dead mommy’s kids?”
“I’m sad about everybody you killed. It doesn’t make me weak.”
“I say it does. I think you own a vagina now.”
“Funny.”
“There’s nothing funny about vaginas. Some of them have teeth--did you know that? Whenever you’ve slipped yourself inside one and you’re thinking about how nice it feels, there’s been about a one-in-ten chance that sharp teeth will close on you.”
“What the hell are you even babbling about, Ivan?”
“Just making conversation with the dead man.”
“Well, Jesus Christ on a crutch, now you sound stoned. How did vaginas with teeth ever become part of this discussion? Those bullets in your head are starting to mess with you.”
“Aw, shit!”
The way he said those words, George knew that they were not Ivan’s response to a sudden realization that the bullets in his brain were indeed impeding his thought processes. George couldn’t get a good view out of the front of the van from his cage, but it was enough to see that the path had dead-ended in front of a small wooden house.
Now this was a development that George could get behind...unless it was a house full of innocent victims.
Ivan slammed his fist against the steering wheel. He uttered a string of profanity that made even George’s own liberal use of expletives sound like baby talk, and then put the van into reverse.
Ivan couldn’t possibly know that there was another van on the path. If Lou and Sam were following them, there’d be nowhere for the werewolf to go.
Fantastic.
The front door opened. A large greyhound bolted outside and ran at the van.
“Aw, for God’s sake,” Ivan muttered.
The dog jumped against the front of the vehicle, barking furiously. But it wasn’t a psycho-rabid dog bark; just the regular old bark of a dog that was way too excited to see strangers.
A thin man in filthy overalls came out of the house. “Roxie!” he shouted. “Get back in here!”
Ivan picked up the pistol, pointed it through the broken windshield, and shot the man in the face. His body dropped right to the ground.
Ivan turned around to look at George. “Did you see what you made me do? I had to kill somebody with a goddamn gun! Do you know how that makes me feel?”
The loud barking from the greyhound continued. Ivan held up his hand, transformed it into a wolf claw, then got out of the van. A few seconds later, there was an equally loud yip. Ivan got back inside, his claw dripping with fresh blood. The thumping had stopped.
“That’s another one on you,” Ivan told George.
If anything, this man’s death was less George’s fault than any of the other murders today, but he certainly didn’t feel any better about it.
Ivan resumed driving the van, backing it up through the path the way they’d come. “If anybody is following us, they’re dead,” Ivan said.
“Understood.” George looked back at Michele, and gasped. Her face had transformed. The change was subtle, but her jaw now protruded a bit and her fingers had grown in length.
“Michele...?”
She shifted position, and there was a loud cracking sound from her legs and back.
“Ahhhhh, shit.” George pressed himself against the other side of the cage. Though the hairs on her arms didn’t seem to be growing, they definitely seemed to be swaying in a non-existent breeze.
In terms of self-preservation, the best thing to do was reach over there, grab her head, and give it a sharp, violent twist. Break her neck.
But he just...couldn’t.
He couldn’t kill an innocent girl.
She cried out in sudden pain, revealing wolf-like fangs.
Okay, if she was about to change into a goddamn werewolf while he was locked in a cage with her, he really needed to break her neck. Morality...stupidity...it was a fine line.
He made a move for her, and she growled. Actually growled.
“Hey!” Ivan snapped. “Don’t touch him! He’s mine!”
Michele growled again, but then cowered in the corner of the cage. George found it very disconcerting that Ivan had felt the need to warn her and not him.
The hair on her arms continued to move, and it seemed to be getting thicker.
He lunged at her. She hissed and bit at him. George pulled his arm away and decided to scoot back to his side of the cage. He sure as hell didn’t want a werewolf bite that might turn him into something like that.
“George, you need to keep your hands to yourself,” Ivan warned. “I don’t want her to have all the fun, but I’m not going to save you from her. If I only get to watch you die, that’s fine, I’ll deal with it.” Ivan sounded a lot more stressed than he’d been before they realized that the path didn’t have any other exits.
Michele began to cry again. He couldn’t be certain with her cowering in the corner like that, but her arm seemed to be bent at a weird angle.
He desperately hoped that by the time this was over, he wouldn’t be jealous of Prescott and his peaceful demise.
“All you had to do was stay away,” Ivan said. “You were free! Do you really think I would have stuck around Florida, or even the United States? I would have fled. I would have been somebody else’s problem. How stupid are you?”
“You kidnapped the girl. That’s not exactly fleeing.”
“Fine. So I would have left the country with a girl that you’d kidnapped yourself, and who may very well murder you any minute now. You should have left it alone. There was no reason for you to stay involved.”
At the moment, George was more than inclined to agree with this logic. But let Ivan be the one to dwell on the past--George just needed to stay calm and hope that this she-wolf continued to listen to her master’s instructions.
Michele’s body shook and tears trickled down her cheeks but she resumed the growling.
“Michele, fight it!” George said. Yeah, it was a stupid thing to say--he wanted to think she was fighting it, but the encouragement couldn’t hurt.
The hair on her arms was definitely growing thicker and darker.
“Fight it! Don’t let him win!”
“You’re wasting your time,” said Ivan. “You might as well be saying that to a cancer patient.”
George’s father had beaten cancer a decade ago, and he credited it to his optimistic outlook on life, so George continued with renewed enthusiasm. “Michele, listen to me! I promise you that you can beat this!”
Michele shook her head and let out a miserable sob.
“You saw what he can do! He can change whenever he wants! That means that you can, too!”
“Fight it!” Ivan urged. “Use the power of love in your heart!”