Hell, even if he did kill Michele, it wasn’t as if Lou could simply load the cage onto the other van and drive away. George would be a nice little present for the cops. Or, much worse, Ivan.
He had to get George out of that cage, no matter what. Even if it meant putting his life at risk.
Concentrate. Get through this. If you pass out now, it’ll be a really humiliating and unsatisfying end to this whole thing. Think of how good a warm shower is going to feel tonight. Oh, yeah.
He went back to the other van, hesitated for a moment as he tried to figure out if he really wanted to do this, then opened up the box of dynamite. It had about ten sticks inside. He probably only needed one, but he took the whole box.
There were no lighters inside the box, which made sense for safety precautions, but a quick search of a shelf of random supplies turned up a butane lighter with a long shaft, just like the one he had for his grill at home.
George screamed.
Lou grabbed a couple more grenades and tossed them into the box, just in case Ivan came back, and then returned to the cage.
“Did she bite you?” Lou asked, taking out a stick of dynamite. It already had a short fuse attached. Perfect.
“Not hard! Hurry!”
“I’ve got this, George. Don’t worry.” Okay, if he put the dynamite right next to the cage door, George would be caught in the blast. That was no good. Three feet away, maybe? He was far from a demolition expert.
“What the hell are you doing?” George demanded.
“I’m getting you out of there!”
“Not with goddamn dynamite, you’re not!”
“It’s the only way!”
“No, no, no, no! There are millions of other ways!” George had his hands around Michele’s neck again, and his arms quivered as he tried to keep her fangs away from him.
Lou lit the fuse. “Stay at the back of the cage!”
“No! No, Lou! Fuck this!”
“Hands over your ears!” Lou grabbed the box and ran. He caught a glimpse of movement from the swamp. Ivan?
Michele snarled.
Lou grabbed a grenade out of the box, and then let the entire box drop to the ground. He pulled the pin and hurled it in what he hoped was Ivan’s direction.
The grenade went off first.
Then the dynamite went off in a nearly eardrum-bursting explosion. The entire cage lifted several inches off the ground, and toppled onto its side. Lou’s ears rang as he watched the smoke clear.
The cage door hung slightly ajar.
Victory! Lou hurried over to the cage. George lay on what was now the bottom of the cage, clearly stunned but also clearly still alive.
Michele’s legs had taken the worst of the blast. There wasn’t much left of one of them.
Lou kicked the cage door all the way open. “C’mon, George!”
George pushed Michele off of him and then scrambled out of the cage. “What the hell was that?”
“I saved your life!”
“You could have killed me!”
“So could she!”
“Don’t do things like that!”
“You’re out of the cage, aren’t you?”
“My legs are all burnt up!”
“They’re not that bad. They’re singed.”
“Look what she did to me! I look as bad as you do!”
“That’s why I tried to get you out!”
“Why didn’t you just pick the lock?”
“It didn’t work!”
“Why didn’t you just get the keys from Ivan?”
“How the hell was I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know!”
“Stop yelling at me!”
“I have to yell! I’m deaf now!”
“Just thank me, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you!”
They both looked down at Michele. She was back to human form, bleeding badly.
Lou crouched down next to the cage. “Aw, shit, I’m so sorry, Michele.”
She gave him a weak smile, revealing red teeth. “How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad,” said George.
“I don’t think I’ll die though,” she said. She turned her head and coughed up some blood. When she looked back at them, her eyes glistened. “Don’t leave me like this.”
“We won’t. I promise.”
“I mean...don’t leave me like this. Put me out of my misery. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to hurt people.”
George nodded. He felt absolutely terrible, but if he were in her situation, he’d feel the exact same way. “Lou, are you sure there aren’t any silver-tipped arrows left?”
“I didn’t tear the whole van apart, but I didn’t see any. George, I don’t want to be cold-hearted or anything, but we really need to get out of here.”
“Use the dynamite,” Michele said.
“What?”
“It’ll hurt less than silver, I think.”
Lou took another stick of dynamite out of the box. “Are you sure this is what you want? Maybe we can get you help.”
“There’s no help for me. I’m sorry, George. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
George almost looked like his eyes were tearing up. “I’m sorry, too. I thought I was helping you by rescuing you from those dogs. Bad call, huh?”
“Yeah.” Suddenly Michele cried out in pain. The hairs on her arm began to sway as they did before the first transformation. “Oh, God...”
Lou lit the fuse and dropped the stick of dynamite into the cage.
Michele picked it up and hugged it to her chest.
The thugs walked away from the cage.
The explosion sounded even louder than the first one.
They looked back. There was nothing left of Michele but some burnt pieces, scattered around the area.
“Shit,” said George.
“At least she didn’t suffer.”
“What do you mean? She suffered a lot.”
“Not from the dynamite, though.”
“Well, that’s lovely. If you count only that last second when she got blown to bits, she died a peaceful death. Wonderful. I guess coming into our lives was the best thing that ever happened to that young girl.”
“I just won’t say anything else.” Lou took another stick of dynamite out of the box while watching carefully for any sign of Ivan.
“Hey, Ivan!” George shouted. “Did you see that? Sorry you didn’t get to make yourself a girlfriend! She was a good choice!” George walked over to the white van and opened the passenger side door.
“Is he still around?” Lou asked. It seemed unlikely that Ivan would stay in the area having witnessed what happened to the other werewolf, but anything was possible with that cocky bastard.
George picked up the tracking device. “Yeah. He’s still close.” George pointed at the swamp in the same direction where Lou had thrown the grenade. “Do it.”
Lou lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite.
The explosion sent up a cloud of smoke and burning leaves. Lou felt too sick over what they’d done to Michele to enjoy the sensation of hurling explosives.
“Did we get him?”
“No,” said George. “Crap. He’s on the move.”
“Should we go after him?”
George stared at the tracking device for a moment. “No, he’s running. I don’t blame him. We won’t be able to catch him on foot. Let’s get in the van. When he comes out of the swamp, we’ll be ready.”
They got in the van, with George driving. Lou figured that this was around the time when several police cars would come into view, red and blue lights flashing, with a few dozen officers pointing rifles at them, but the path remained empty.
“Once again, we could just let him go,” said Lou.
“Are you kidding me? With a van full of great stuff? That furry son of a bitch is dead.”
Lou sighed. “All right.”
“You’re with me, right?”
Lou thought about that for a moment. “You know what? I actually think I am. I will be really, really relieved when he’s dead.”
“Me too.”
“So...Mexico or Canada when we flee from our former lives?”
“People are polite in Canada.”
“But it’s cold there.”
“I don’t speak much Spanish.”
“But again, it’s cold.”