“I won’t.”
* * *
Ivan Spinner sat in a tree, feeling good about life. He hadn’t felt so good half an hour ago, when he climbed up this tree; in fact, he’d been pissed off and even a little ashamed. Why did he run away when that bozo Lou cut him? Yeah, it hurt, but he should have ripped Lou’s heart out, stuck it on the end of his talon, and licked it like a Tootsie Roll Pop. It would’ve been fine to murder Lou. That still left George as his plaything.
Of course, he couldn’t forget Michele. He had no ill feelings toward her, but he was certainly going to enjoy devouring her fine ass, even though he wasn’t really a cannibal. He’d be romantic about it. He’d tell her he loved her first.
He reached back and touched the cut. It felt almost healed. The one on his chest had faded to a red scratch. Both cuts still hurt, but that was typical--the wounds went away before the pain.
He wished he hadn’t been forced to reveal the full scope of his power. Unfortunately, though being a werewolf made his life much easier and a lot more fun and was quite honestly absolutely fucking fantastic, it did not allow him to bend bars. He’d been a little worried--not too much, but a little--that George and Lou would take him all the way to Tampa without giving him a chance to escape. Ivan didn’t know much about Mr. Dewey and his crew, and though he was relatively certain that he could’ve gotten away even after George and Lou made their delivery, it was much better to be on the loose here.
He wondered if the werewolf element had made it into the news, or if they thought it was just a regular old human serial killer who’d cut up Diane. He loved the idea of some hillbilly being interviewed: “Why, I saw it, and that thing, it was half-man and half-beast! I ain’t done seen nothin’ like it in my life, even when I’ve sucked down a couple quarts of my county-famous moonshine!”
Ivan climbed down from the tree. Logically, he knew that he should make a run for it and move to another part of the world--again--but what was the point of being a werewolf if you couldn’t terrorize people? George had probably dropped a great big loaf in his oversized underwear, but Ivan hadn’t come close to being satisfied with the thug’s comeuppance.
He’d loved George’s expression when he slid that blade through Diane’s silky neck. Fifty percent horror, fifty percent guilt, mixed into a delicious concoction of misery. George was sitting in that van right now, wailing “It was all my fault! It was all my fault!”
Yeah, George, it sure as hell was.
And this whole killing spree is going to be your fault, too.
Ivan’s shirt had fallen off completely, though his pants had held up fairly well thanks to the elastic waist. He could probably break into somebody’s house and steal a change of clothing without too much trouble, but, no, it felt like the kind of afternoon where he should murder somebody just for their clothes.
Murder them slowly.
Make them die a lingering, horrible, excruciatingly painful death simply because they wore the same size shirt as him.
He sat down next to the tree. It was a pretty desolate piece of road, but three cars had driven by while he was up there, so another one was bound to approach before too much longer.
He wondered if any of his four-legged friends were around. He closed his eyes and put out the call. Nothing heavy-duty like before; just a mild little dog-call to see if any showed up.
Ivan didn’t have the slightest idea how this power worked, whether he was sending out some frequency that only dogs could hear, or if one of George’s guesses was right and it had something to do with his scent, or if he could control dog brain waves, or whatever. Unlike the transformations, which he’d mastered in a ridiculously short timeframe--okay, eight years, but that was damn good for a werewolf, since most of them never learned to control it--he still hadn’t quite figured out the whole dog thing. It was sort of like being able to move a pencil with his mind, except that he didn’t know if the pencil was going to roll across the table or twirl up into the air and poke out somebody’s eye.
He sat there for about five minutes until a small gray Schnauzer walked along the side of the road toward him. No collar. He wondered if it was a stray.
He heard the engine of an approaching car. Sometimes, things just worked out perfectly.
The dog looked at him and let out a sharp bark.
“Fuck you,” he told it. He continued to concentrate.
The dog walked into the middle of the road and began to happily move in the direction of the oncoming car.
Poor, poor doggie. Ivan chuckled as the dog, its tongue hanging partly out of its mouth like a complete moron, trotted along toward its doom. I think I’ll name you...Roadkill.
The car, a white sedan, came around the corner. The driver swerved at the last instant, missing the Schnauzer by the length of its stubby tail, and then careened off the road.
The dog ran off.
Well, shit. He’d hoped to see the dog get creamed and to disable the vehicle. Oh well.
Ivan stood up, jogged over to the car, and opened the passenger-side door. The driver, a bald man who was too young to be naturally bald, seemed shaken up but not hurt. He’d been wearing his seatbelt. Smart lad.
“You okay?” Ivan asked.
“Yeah...stupid dog ran right in front of me...” The man sounded kind of dazed. That wasn’t any good. Ivan wanted him fully aware of what was about to happen.
“Did you injure yourself?” Ivan asked. “Do you need me to seek the services of a medical professional? If you have one of those new cellular phone devices, I could probably call for assistance.” He climbed into the car next to the man, who looked shocked at both Ivan’s shredded pants and the fact that he was getting into the car uninvited.
“I don’t need--”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ivan told him, pulling the door shut. He gave him a wide smile, revealing his werewolf teeth. “Spooooooky, huh?”
The man immediately reached for his door handle. Ivan decided to go half-werewolf. The one bitch he had about his lycanthropy was that he couldn’t talk as a wolfman, so he went for the not-quite-as-hairy, not-quite-as-muscular, but still clearly wolfish and scary look. It was actually kind of demonic.
The man screamed.
Ivan laughed at him, a low, sexy growl of a laugh that the ladies found ever so alluring. Then he showed him his claws. “You try to leave this car and these are going right into you.”
The man kept screaming, so Ivan said it again, louder. Then he raked his claws across the man’s chest. “Shut up!”
“Oh, God, please don’t hurt me!”
“I just did hurt you, dumb-ass. Do you like your head?”
“What?”
“I said, do you like your head? It’s not a challenging question. Yes or no. Do. You. Like. Your. Head?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t make me rip it off and drink from it like a juice box, all right? What size shirt do you wear?”
“A...a large.”
“I look better in a medium, but I prefer large for comfort, so that’ll work just fine. What’s your name?”
“What are you?”
“What the fuck do you think I am? A Martian? Come on, buddy; I know you’re scared, but think before you ask stupid questions. Now apologize to me for wasting my time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. I asked you your name.”
“Dale.”
“Like Chip and Dale? The squirrels?”
“Yes.”
“Or Chippendales. Wow. Never thought of that before. I wonder if it was intentional.”
“I...I don’t know.”
“That’s okay. I wasn’t really asking. Chip and Dale, I guess they aren’t squirrels, are they? They’re chipmunks. Chip the Chipmunk. That’s a pretty lame name for a cartoon character when you take Dale out of it, don’t you think? The Disney writers weren’t having a good day. Now it’s my turn to apologize to you--we’re getting pretty far off the subject at hand, which is your shirt size.”