Bestial (20 page)

When he had finally been freed by Americans arriving in tanks (a strange hybrid he saw as half man, half machine, not quite as interesting as his own hybrid, animal and man), he’d returned to college, graduating with honors. He’d worked in various laboratories for different corporations around the world, solving chemical problems and seizing upon this new scientific field: genetics.
While he’d toiled in the labs in the daytime, he bought and read every book on lycanthropy and shape-shifting he could find.

In his research, he found that nearly every civilization had its own shape-shifter myth. In Eastern Europe, the wolf was the preferred animal that lycanthropes could become. In Russia, they turned into huge bears. In China, men became jaguars. In India, they became tigers. The common denominator was that they were all predators, all endowed with teeth and claws for hunting. Jean had wondered if the myths were some vestige of an ancient past, when man needed to be stronger in order to hunt and kill food for his family, a buried memory from the Stone Age.

Surely, he reasoned, if so many different civilizations possessed superstitions about a very similar beast, there had to be something genuine about it.

Jean believed that man was endowed with two alter egos: one human, with all the attributes of the selfish, destructive race of man; the other animal, manifesting the characteristics of the predatory animal kingdom. He saw the animalistic side of man as the true identity, a pure soul untouched by greed and hatred, existing only to exist … feeding, copulating, and nurturing its family. The human side was responsible for all that he had witnessed at Auschwitz.

Jean had been reading about sightings of a huge animal in East Siberia, north of Noril’sk. The beast seemed to appear every full moon cycle, and the sightings had been taking place for several generations. Only a few incidents of humans being killed and half-devoured had occurred during the past forty years, but several dozen animal mutilations—usually involving cattle—were reported. Jean had researched the area more, placing pins on a map for every verified sighting, using different colored pushpins for every animal mutilation. They seemed centralized around a small village on the plains, Chakl’sa.

This could be the proof he had sought for so long, a true shape-shifter. If he could find the one person in the village who had been there during the entire time the attacks had taken place, if he could isolate which one of them was the lycanthrope, he was certain it would lead to more and more discoveries about the animalistic side
of mankind. Perhaps he could isolate the cause of the disease and cure it. Maybe he could make sure that there would never again be a Third Reich.

He traveled to Siberia, where he—

Christian was startled out of his reading by a noise from outside the laboratory. Flicking off the flashlight he was using, he glanced up at Andrei, who had stopped his frenetic pacing and stared at the doors, growling. The beast-man had heard something as well.

Christian grabbed the pistol Jean had used to shoot himself. There were still five bullets in the chamber. He wondered if it would be enough.

Slowly opening the door, he stuck his head into the hallway. It was very quiet. Christian crept into the hall, looking each way, waiting for a repeat of the sound.

It didn’t take long.

Something scratched at the stairs in the stairwell, claws scrabbling for a better hold on each step. There was a muffled noise, then a growl followed by a high-pitched yipe. Growls interrupted the clicking sound for a few seconds as what sounded like two creatures broke into a fight.

Christian slowly backed up to the room he had left. He raised the pistol to point at the door leading to the stairs. A twelve-by-six-inch window displayed only darkness on the other side of the door.

Can they work doorknobs?
he wondered.
Can they get their filthy paws around them without opposable thumbs?

His breathing was the only sound once the fight had run its course. It seemed terribly loud in the hallway, and he attempted to slow it down, exhaling through his mouth, breathing in through his nostrils.

The silence dragged on for what seemed like hours, but Christian knew it couldn’t be more than thirty seconds.

A few clicks from the stairwell. Something’s talons scraped on the stairs.

Christian held his breath. His hands were shaking.

The pistol wavered.

Darkness filled the window; then suddenly a huge head and snout appeared at the glass. A long black tongue licked the pane.

Even in the darkness of the stairwell, Christian could see the monster’s golden eyeshine, scanning the hallway. As he stepped backward into the laboratory, the eyes latched on to him, and the beast, reinvigorated by the sight of tender, juicy flesh, pounded on the door.

Christian pushed a heavy desk in front of the entrance to the lab.

Andrei began howling in short, powerful bursts, as if to signal the beast-men in the stairwell.

Something smashed in the hall—the glass window in the door to the stairs.

Christian looked around the room—there had to be something here to save him, a weapon, a point of escape—but he could see very little. The only light fell from the full moon, slipping through the window and draping the sill.

Andrei’s howls grew higher in pitch, then he huffed like a grizzly bear. He tore at the Plexiglas again in a futile effort to escape.

In the hall, something clanked, loud, like a bullet being fired.

The growling grew excited, stertorous.

They had managed to open the stairwell door. Now all that stood between Christian and who knew how many sets of claws and teeth was a single door, mostly made of glass, and a heavy desk.

There had to be someplace to hide. …

Through the frosted glass with the names painted on it, he could see two silhouettes rise up from the ground. The creatures were gigantic, at least seven feet tall when standing on their hind legs. One turned its head sideways, and Christian got a good glimpse of its crooked fangs.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

Both of the heads snapped back so they were facing the door.

Christian slapped a hand over his mouth. He had just given away his position. He began to rush around the room, looking for any escape route, anything other than the pistol, which now seemed ridiculously inadequate. He wanted an ax, something solid and sharp.

There was nothing.

His eyes were drawn to Jean’s journal, which he’d left on the chair, open to maintain his place in the narrative. He couldn’t lose this book, he realized. It offered too many clues as to what was
happening, why people were changing. He snatched it up and stuffed it in the front of his pants.

There was only one way out of the room. He unlatched the window and yanked it open. The air was surprisingly cool on his skin, and it smelled much better than the stale laboratory. The edge of a metal ladder, covered in flaking paint, gleamed in the pale moonlight.

Yes!
he thought, his heart rushing with triumph and adrenaline, so hard it threatened to burst from his rib cage.

The glass on the door shattered, and the low animal noises gave way to victorious roars.

Don’t look back
,
don’t look back
, Christian told himself as he hopped through the window and hooked his leg over the end of the metal ladder, which was six inches higher than would be comfortable.
Don’t you fucking look back!

Of course, as soon as he turned to slam down the window, he looked back.

“Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

There were more of them than he’d thought, at least five or six. The door splintered beneath the heavy shoulders of the first creature in line. The wood cracked and fell to the floor, and the creature stepped over the broken barrier, sniffing at the room.

It had deep brown fur, and its body was muscular, especially around the neck and shoulders. Its barrel chest heaved as it stood awkwardly on its hind legs, exposing withered dugs. Raising its head, it howled at the ceiling.

As the second monster loped into the room, the first spotted Christian outside the window.

The ladder, rusted metal with brown spots on the grips from years of use, was mounted perpendicular to the side of the Bio-Gen building, sticking out a few inches from the brick. It rose to the fire escape leading to the roof. If Christian could get up there, he might be safe. At least for a while.

He grabbed the ladder, shifting his balance to the rungs under his feet. To his surprise and horror, the ladder was on a pulley, and it dropped eight feet, well below the fragile protection of the window he’d just closed. The ladder dropped toward the alley, where vague,
ominous shapes moved in the shadows. Luckily, it stopped with a jolt, six feet from the pavement, and Christian climbed, hand over hand, the rungs cool to his touch.

When the boy reached the window of the lab, the first beast-man began pounding tentatively on the glass. Christian knew the window wouldn’t last long, and he moved faster, climbing the rungs as quickly as his hands and feet could manage. The book began to work its way out of his jeans, and he could feel it escaping. No way was he losing this precious volume!

His feet were a mere six inches above the window when the glass shattered into the alley beneath him.

The monster shoved its upper body through the jagged space, yelping when it cut its torso on the broken glass. Its clumsy hands reached for the ladder, not adapted for such tasks, fingers resembling talons, pads replacing most of the palm. It fumbled with one of the rungs two feet beneath Christian’s sneakers.

He ascended faster, each rung taking him four more inches away from the horror below.

Just as the journal almost liberated itself from his pants, Christian grabbed it and put it in his mouth, clenching his teeth around the soft leather. The scent of it infiltrated his nostrils.

The creature below him was being shoved aside by another inside the laboratory. It grasped at the ladder for half a second; then it fell three stories into the alley, landing with a crash on its head. Brains and blood shot from the shattered skull.

Christian reached the uppermost segment of the ladder, and the pulleys, not restricted by a lycanthrope’s fumbling paws, retracted, raising the ladder to its original position, six inches above the window. The boy laughed, the sound stunted by the book he clenched in his jaws.

Two more feet, and the ladder led to a hole in a fire escape landing. Pulling himself onto the platform, Christian allowed himself a glance down at the window of the lab. The creatures glared up at him, the moonlight reflected in their eyes, saliva bubbling over their blackened gums. One of them reached for the ladder, but then it was knocked aside as another shouldered its way through
the broken window and scowled up at him, bellowing with rage and hunger.

Christian allowed himself a few minutes to get his breathing back to normal and let his heart stop pounding so furiously. He took the journal from his mouth and started climbing the stairs to the roof.

Below, one of the werewolves grabbed the ladder and shook it. Christian clutched the handrail, dropping the leather journal.

It bounced off a few rusty rungs before landing in the alley amidst a congregation of beast-men.

“Oh, damn it,” Christian muttered.

At least fifteen creatures waited in the alley for him to fall. Any hope the journal might have offered, any wisdom it could have imparted, would now have to wait until morning. If it was still there. Saying a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening, Christian ascended the fire escape to the roof. By the time he got there, he could hear the beast-men in the lab, but they had left the window. They seemed to have lost interest.

Unless they were trying a new and different way to get at him.

Looking around the rooftop, he saw only one other entrance, a door that was padlocked. He figured it led to the stairwell. Although it was locked, he wasn’t sure how long it would hold up to the beast-men’s attacks. He would do well to keep an eye on it.

All around him, he saw other empty rooftops, some a few stories higher, most at the same level or lower. Some of the buildings were separated by alleys, and some by wide city streets. Some had signs or smokeless chimneys. The city looked dead from this angle, quiet and almost peaceful. As though everything was still normal.

But in the streets, lycanthropes ran through the maze of stalled cars and trucks, several fighting minor wars, biting and lashing out. Pairs of them fornicated, the male mounting the female from behind, sinking its teeth into the nape of her neck. The creatures were fucking each other, plain and simple. This was no lovemaking; this was down and dirty instinct.

Christian focused on a particular cluster of monsters. Three or four dozen fought and gnashed their teeth, attempting to get into a big truck turned on its side.

“Oh wow,” he whispered, almost admiring the way so many of them went after the truck, scratching at its metal walls, knocking each other aside to have a chance at it.

Christian hoped that whoever was in the truck—and he harbored no doubts that somebody was locked inside of it—remained safe until morning, when the things would revert back to their harmless, human forms.

Looking around at the city, he feared that cleaning up this mess could take months, maybe even years. Small fires burned in various spots, and in the distance toward the Western Hills area, he could see a huge blaze, so big he wondered if it was a forest fire. It lit up the west like the dawn making a morning mistake.

The cars in the streets below him had been overturned, shuffled during the night. One fire hydrant had been demolished, and water spurted, dark and oily, through the streets. Two of the creatures lapped at it, an urban watering hole. In the middle of the destruction, he saw one hotel, at least thirty stories high, that seemed to wave in the wind. An explosion had removed a good portion of its cornerstone, and it looked as though it could topple at any minute.

It all became too much for him.

Keeping his face to the padlocked door, he waited for the dawn, scanning the rooftops for various exits in case the creatures discovered his hiding place. His hands shook with the rush of adrenaline, and tears fell from his eyes, a mixture of terror and relief.