Chapter 14 – The Storm
Adrenaline
flooded my system, and I tried to simulate relaxation in my face while my heart
stepped up. Frank looked ragged. He was hung over from a day of drinking and
dehydrated from the heat. His head was still muzzy from a nap in a hot tent.
This would have been enough of an edge to simply use my werewolf speed and take
the gun away from any other man. But Frank Saunders wasn’t a man. He was a
werewolf, like me. Moreover, Frank was a psychopath. He had killed a friend of
my motorcycle club years ago while in a drunken rage and ran. The club had
branded him an outcast for it.
Claxton
Geet kept his seat but looked at Frank Saunders defiantly. “You had better read
the room Frank. You’re not one of us. You somehow conned your way into this
carnival by making Mr. Pandemonium some shady promises. He told me he kept you
around to see if you could deliver on those same promises. All I’ve seen you do
is drink and run your mouth since you got here.”
“That
sounds like Frank alright.” I chuckled while scenting the air.
“Let’s
think this through. If shots are fired and Bell comes to deal with the
situation, it could be bad. He could have Pandemonium fire the lot of us. If
the Deputy Sheriff that’s been doing surveillance on the carney and his men hears
that gun go off? Well, it would give him a reason to come down here onto
company owned land.” The fire-eater shouted to be heard above the mounting
storm.
The storm
brewing outside was making the air inside the tent move faster. I could smell
Frank’s sweat as he stood up quickly and steadied the .38. I realized then that
he might not be as drunk as I initially thought. There should be some stink of
fear in Frank’s perspiration. An animal response to the aggression pheromones I
was emitting. I hated Frank. He knew this. But there was no odor of fear on the
wiry biker. Just the stench of alcohol.
He thinks
he is safe for the moment I reasoned. He never intended to shoot unless he had to.
He was just psychologically winding everyone else up.
Dorthy pushed
me hard in the back to get my attention. I knew better than to take my eyes off
Frank. The more that I stared at him the more my anger built.
“Not now
Dorthy.” I said between gritted teeth.
“Kyle, let
me handle this. You’re out of control.” She said.
“This
sorry son of a bitch injected one of the most corrupt men I’ve ever known with
a drug that made him superhuman.” I pointed my finger at Frank. I saw that my
hand was starting to grow fur. I didn’t care. “Then he sicced him on my
daughter and ran.” I screamed.
“Yes, he
turned him into a monster. A nearly unstoppable member of the undead.” Dorthy
said evenly. “He created an Abomination. But we stopped him. Don’t make me stop
you, Kyle. Let me handle this.”
“He’s also
got Big Mary’s bike!” Knuckle Butt said in a hoarse voice.
I could
feel the power of “The Change” upon me. “Frank, you thieving puke, if you have
done anything to Big Mary…” I felt my jaw elongate. I heard the fire-eater
gasp. I was becoming nonverbal. Talking was becoming difficult, but I didn’t
care about talking anymore.
Time
slowed down for me. A side-effect of the adrenaline. The once-stale carnival
air was swirling with scents. I was entering the werewolf level of
consciousness. Overpowering and vivid sensory input. I smelled the citrusy tang
of lemonade in a plastic container in a nearby stand. The smoky, hazy smell of
the hot dog grill. I could even smell the damp canvass of the tent and the
metallic tang of the coins. I could smell the oil that had been on the human fingertips
that had touched the paper currency.
I hadn’t
responded to “The Change” in so long it all felt like torture but at the same
time it was glorious. I could smell the sweat on the coins. I could tell which members
of the poker game had last touched the coins.
“Frank. I
growled. Thunder peeled in the heavens. The noise blasted through me. I howled.
Then I screamed, “She had to shoot Calvin in the head four times to stop him!”
Frank just
grinned. “She did that to save her own
life. Quit calling her your daughter. It’s pathetic. That girl isn’t your
daughter, Doc. Quit fooling yourself. You’re like me. No better! You will never
have a family. You will never have a normal life.”
I strained
to speak. My voice was an unholy and primal thing now. “Frank, she killed him
to save my life, not hers.” I grabbed him. My muscled hand closed around
Frank’s throat. The fur had started to fill in around the tendons that looked
like cables. I now had claws the size of switchblades.
I looked
at my hand. “Maybe we are just alike, Frank. She wouldn’t have been in that
situation if it hadn’t been for both of us.” I lifted him off the floor. He
pulled back the hammer on the .38.
Pamela,
the mechanic screamed. Dana looked at Dorthy. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her
head as the carney worker watched my transformation.
“Grant,”
Dorthy cried. “Take Dana out to the truck. If I’m not there in five minutes
leave.” Knuckle Butt hustled out of the
tent with Dana.
“Doc, we
are leaving.” She stuck her hand out and pointed at the floor. “Drop” Dorothy
screamed looking up at me.” She adjusted her leather duster and frock. “Bad
werewolf!” she added.
The small
necromancer turned around. The tent was in disarray and the table now on the
floor. Apparently, I had done this. She turned to Claxton Geet, Pamela the
mechanic and the fire eater. They were still looking at me holding Frank by the
throat while he was simultaneously holding a gun on me. I felt a sudden
compulsion to let Frank go. He slipped as he landed. The raven went with him
but gracefully landed on his arm.
“It has
been an eventful afternoon. I am sorry I didn’t catch everyone’s name. I do
apologize that we now must leave, for my friend here isn’t quite himself right
now.” Then she turned to the raven. “Peck we are going home. You know what to
do.”
“Bout time
Dorthy!” Peck complained. The raven, still tethered to Frank, in a flurry, stabbed
him thrice in his gun hand with his sizable beak. The gun fell to the floor. “Done!”
he reported as Frank danced and hopped on one foot.
He looked
at his gun hand in dismay as Dorthy swept her hand into her pocket and came out
with a small knife. Frank, obviously rattled, and still trying to stop the flow
of blood from the meager wound Peck had delivered, remained still and silent as
she approached.
She cut
the tether connecting Peck to Frank. “We came in an old pick up. You remember
Grant, don’t you?” Dorthy asked the bird.
“I’ll find
it. Don’t’ be long. You don’t want to mess with Bell.” Peck said as he took
wing and flew out of the tent.
“Kyle, you’re
going to have to ride in the truck bed. The cab is already full. It is pouring
down rain so Glenn says there is a canvas tarp you can pull over you over you.”
I nodded
and slowly turned to glare at the others in the tent one last time.
“Oh, and
Mr. Saunders.” Dorthy turned to Frank who was trying to bandage his hand with a
ripped piece of his shirt tail. “You should know that Jacob Hornsby, the Old
Well, gave me one of his wishes in exchange for a favor. Doc is currently
having some anger issues. As soon as he sorts those out, he will return to
retrieve his friend’s motorcycle. He will also have questions. You need to cooperate with him. Else I’ll use
that wish to make your life a living hell. Do we understand each other?”
Frank
nodded. It was a nod of resignation. The nod of someone defeated but determined
to get the upper hand again, sooner or later.
“Fine then.
Kyle, if you could please help me over those puddles?” I picked Dorthy gently up
in my shaggy arms and carried her to the truck.
“Maybe the
rain will wash away some of that guilt and anger. Then we need to communicate
better with each other.” She whispered in my furry ear. I just nodded in
agreement.
I pulled
the tarp over my partially soggy fur and plopped down in the bed of Knuckle
Butt’s old pick-up truck. Suddenly I realized that I wasn’t alone.
“Dorthy
told me to keep you company on the ride back.” Peck shook the rain off his
feathers and cocked one eye at me with keen interest.
“Pardon, I
don’t mean to stare and be rude, but I’ve never seen a werewolf before…up close
like this, I mean. The others were always chasing me. Trying to eat me, I
guess. Are you a vegetarian then?”
I gave the
bird a faint smile, which doesn’t translate as subtle humor very well when I’m
in my werewolf state.
“Oh! I
forgot. Dorthy said that you can’t talk when you are furry.” Peck said while
hanging on to my knee as Knuckle Butt’s truck bounced over the dirt road back
to town.
“To keep
you company and pass the time I will sing you a raven song from my youth.” He announced
over the rain drops and revving of the engine.
“Can ravens
sing?” I wondered to privately.
Please
dream a raven’s dream.
He’s
just a friend
He is
just a black bird,
And not
an omen.
He is
here to lend a hand.
He is
here to make you laugh,
He is
here to guide you down
The
dark and lonely path…
* *
*
The song
went on for quite a while. Long enough for the rain to stop. Also, long enough
for us to roll past Deputy Goodwin and
Beerman up on a ridge. They quit watching the Pandemonium Carnival entrance for
a minute and checked us out.
In case
you were wondering, ravens can’t sing very well, but I appreciated the effort
and the fact that they have their own songs. Peck sang several other songs that
he said he learned when he belonged to a Merchant Marine captain that sailed
the South China Seas. I remember some of those lyrics but chose not to include
them at this point in my tale.
I had also
gone deep into myself while the bird held forth. I noticed that I was slowly
but most certainly changing back into my human form.
“Why did I
get so angry at Frank? True, he had betrayed Petey’s friendship and given Big
Mary a lot of grief throughout most of their relationship. He had broken the laws
of my bike club and had shot Deacon Biggs, Dorthy’s son, in the leg last month.
The thing
that I had focused on, however, was Alice shooting Calvin Pryde. I felt another
surge of anger just thinking about it again. If I had to be honest, I felt like
I had placed her in a dangerous position. She had handled herself superbly. Frank
had aimed Calvin at Alice like a weapon. He had injected him with Honky Kong turning
the psychopath into a raging super zombie.
Alice had
shot him in the head four times with my service .44 before she killed him. He
fell at her feet, dead. I was exhausted and wounded from my previous struggle
with Naydene’s father whom Calvin had transformed into a killing machine using
the same drug. We had to burn Cletus alive to stop his rampage.
I stopped
myself in mid-thought for a second. ‘Alive’.
The word flashed before me. Was Cletus alive? He was a zombie before we burned
him. Was Calvin alive? Deke had tainted his cigars with pig’s blood that
carried the zombie virus. His heart had stopped beating for hours but he was
starting to ‘turn’ when Frank injected him.
I must
have had some deep remorse over thinking of Alice killing a man. Was Calvin alive…was
he a living ‘man’ when Alice pulled the trigger of my weapon. I felt like it
had robbed her of her innocence as some poets would have their readers believe.
I must have felt responsible for that. Alice, however, didn’t seem to suffer
any obvious or lasting effects from the encounter. Maybe Alice thought of him
as a dangerous animal or mindless ‘thing’ at the time. Perhaps there is a
different perspective I need to reflect on.
“So…no
more fur, no more fangs.” Peck rasped. What ’cha thinking Doc? Hope you don’t
mind if I call you Doc.” The bird started to straighten and preen his inky
feathers.
“You can
call me Doc…or Kyle as Dorthy does. You don’t want to know my thoughts right
now, friend. Maybe another time. Could you sing another song. It seems to help
me organize my thoughts.
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