Breeds (19 page)

The wind sank into his flattened ears, warning him:
forbidden
.
Forbidden.
There was a reason not to feast upon another
Were
.

The smell lifted his nose and, as sure as Pavlov’s dinner bell, Morris felt his mouth water. His stomach––or whatever was operating as his stomach down there––rumbled again. Anything he ingested would aid in the recovery process.
Two minutes to change,
he remembered telling Kirk. Well, if he ever spoke to the man again, Morris planned on telling him he beat his own personal time. He forced the change, knowing the dangers of doing so, understanding the high chance of personal injury.

But in the heat of battle––more to the point, when some old fucker blows your
hand
off–– well, some things just get forgotten and rage takes over.

Morris didn’t know exactly how fast he’d changed. He’d been in agony and pissed beyond belief. He’d gotten his fur on pretty damn quick in the past when properly motivated, but this time, damage had been done. Internally. He could feel something wrong.

The rising wind stole his attention and he listened to its song, muzzle on the floor, between his paw and stump. Blizzard wasn’t going to last forever. They’d find Borland eventually. They’d find him.

Morris thought he heard the old man chuckle, an unpleasant sound echoing somewhere just underneath the winds. Damn straight. Borland’s corpse knew the play. Practically
dared
him to do something.

The Pictou County native couldn’t afford to be here. Not in wolf form, and not in his current fucked-up state. Food, forbidden as it was, lay nearby.

Evil.
Borland had been straight-up evil. And the old bastard tempted him from beyond with his dead carcass.

Morris sighed, a purely wolf sound. He had choices, but they were all bad.

The weak growls emanated deep from his throat and he winced because of it. The smell lured him closer, his paws scrabbling on linoleum, digging in and leaving grooves. He didn’t look at Borland’s pallid face. Instead, he dragged his mutilated self towards a motionless boot of the dead
Were
, smearing the chilled blood on the floor. With a grunt and a whimper, he relented far easier than he could ever have believed.

The fact that he was salivating even more did not escape his attention.

With the blizzard only just getting started, Ross pounded on Alvin’s door, peered through the dark window, and pounded on it again. A five-minute walk in clear conditions had become a ten-minute-plus march of endurance for both him and his companion, Doug. Twice Ross had stumbled on the way to the nearest house through the freezing winds trying to rip his snowsuit from his hide. Then he realized who lived here. The power had been out for a short time, so he supposed chances were good that he and Doug wouldn’t catch Alvin watching British porn on the internet.

The repeated heavy knocking summoned Alvin’s sinister lump into view. The big man paused in his hallway, before shining a light into his visitors’ eyes.

“Open up, Alvin!” Ross shouted, making Doug glance about, squinting against snow and seeing no more than five feet.

Alvin took his time.

“You know him?” Doug asked.

“Yeah,” Ross nodded. “This is the other kid in town.”

The door cracked open. A blob of an individual sheepishly edged just enough of his face out to inspect them both. The man wore a headband with a flashlight affixed to it, bright enough that Ross had to shield his eyes. Plastic tubing ran over Alvin’s huge shoulders and stopped at his nose.

“Christ, Rossy,” Alvin muttered, cringing in the gale. “D’fuck is you doin’ out in this shit?”

“You okay in there, Alvin?”

The big man scowled and held the door open with a paw of a hand. “Ah, yeaup. All’s cool in here, b’y. C’mon in ‘afore yer asses freeze off. Don’t mind yer boots.”

Alvin backed away. There was very little room for him to turn around. The pair entered, stomping and wiping snow off their frames. Both men looked tired and exceptionally cold. Frost gleamed in the glare of the head lamp.

“Wonnerful weather, eh?” Alvin asked.

“Yeah,” Ross agreed. “Turn that light off. Yer blindin’ me. Look, Alvin, you got a phone we could use?”

“All down, b’y,” Alvin reported, hunching up his shoulders. He looked at Doug and raised his hand. “Alvin, by the way.”

“Ah, sorry,” said Ross. “This is Doug.”

“Alvin.”

“Dougie,” Alvin greeted.

Doug winced, probably not entirely pleased about being called ‘Dougie.’

“Listen, you got any way we can call the cops?” Ross asked.

“Call the cops?” Alvin exclaimed. “No b’y, not at all. Taught you came over to pass the time. I got some black rum up in the cupboard. Powerful shit that is.”

“No time for that.”

“Wha’? There’s always time for a little––” and at this, Alvin tipped his hand back, crossed his eyes, and stuck the tip of his tongue out before lapsing into a sloppy grin.

“Not this time,” Ross said. “We got a situation.”

“Wha’? Someone die?”

“Yeah, someone did.”

“Praise Jesus if it’s that old cocksucker Harry Shea.”

“No, it’s––” Ross scrunched up his face. “That’s a bit harsh, ain’t it? What’s old Harry done to you?”

“Ross,” Doug prodded, getting him back on track.

“Right. No, it’s old man Borland. Got himself dead.”

“Walt Borland’s gone, eh?” Alvin stated, half-surprised, half-thoughtful. In the background, the big man’s concentrator inhaled and thumped with mechanical irregularity. “What happened?”

Ross looked at his companion. “What
did
happen? You never did fess up.”

Doug exhaled mightily. “Wild dog attack.”

“Wild dog
attack
?” Alvin exclaimed. “Holy shit fingers. Wild dogs? Around here? D’fuck the wild dogs at around here? D’fuck they goin’ at Borland for? Jesus, that one had to be tough as all––”

“Alvin,” Ross interjected, knowing his friend easily got off track when he got excited. “You hear anything in here? See anything outside?”

“Y’mean like wild dogs rippin’ people apart. That kinda shit?”

“Yeah.”

“No, b’y. Nuttin’ ‘cept the computer.”

“All right, then stay inside, okay? You stay in here and lock this door. Y’still got that double barrel of your father’s?”

“What for?”

“To shoot.”

Alvin’s face grew concerned. “Jesus, yer fuckin’ serious, ain’t cha?”

“Like a fist up your ass, I’m serious.”

“Christ, Rossy, no need for that kinda imagery. Gross. Anyways, nah man. I mean I have the shotgun, but I haven’t fired ‘er off in ages.”

“Y’got any gun in there at all?”

“Whadda I need a gun fer? I’m a fuckin’ weapon, ol’ man.” Alvin drew his mass up, eyes crinkling in mock seriousness. “Lookit me. Gaze upon this prime physical specimen and know terror. Lo and be––”

“I’m fuckin’ serious here, Alvin.”

“All right, all right. No, I got nuthin’.”

“You got that ninja shit,” Ross pointed out. “The shit you got online. That’s a fuckin’ arsenal.”

“Right, yeah, there’s that.”

“Then have it handy.”

Alvin nodded, all humor leaking from his face.

“You got air?”

“Yeah. C-Cup’s powered by the generator now.”

“That all?”

Alvin shrugged, seemingly touched by the concern. “Got another two back-up tanks in me bedroom closet. They look like a couple of torpedoes. About eight hours’ worth in each. I’m okay.”

“We gotta head back out,” Doug said quietly, distracting both men and already turning around for the door.

“Yeah,” Ross agreed. He fixed Alvin with a steady gaze. “Lock the door. Don’t open it for no one. Especially wild dogs. And keep your ninja shit handy. All right?”

A confused Alvin nodded, and Ross could see he was wondering what to make of it all. Doug opened the door, and Ross put his shoulder to it so the wind wouldn’t grab it. Cold air flooded the entryway with arctic clarity.

“Mind yerself,” Ross shouted at Alvin.

Alvin numbly nodded back.

The wind threatened to slam Ross against the gleaming porcelain hue of the house. Doug was already descending to the road, his silhouette winking out in the dark weather. Ross almost didn’t want to go after him. The dog-things had freaked him out more than he let on. Killing one of them disturbed him. It was one of those decisions that had to be made in an instant, life or death in that case, and even though Ross knew he chose correctly, it still unnerved him that creatures like the dogs actually existed.

Standing at the bottom, his deep tracks stopping right in the middle of the road, Doug had turned around to see what kept him. Ross didn’t entirely trust the guy. Too much had happened too fast, and while he didn’t sense Doug was lying, Ross was pretty sure he wasn’t fessing up to everything. At least, after the thing at Borland’s house, the man wasn’t trying to kill him.

Promising himself he’d be careful, Ross adjusted his snowsuit hood and stomped down over the embankment, towards the road. He glanced back once at Alvin’s house, its shape shimmering in the vortex of the storm, and thought maybe he saw something standing in the picture window.

Then another bone-chilling gust and the house disappeared.

Alvin breathed hard on his air tubes as he watched the blizzard swallow the two men. Wild dogs. The notion left him a bit breathless. How any wild dogs could be roaming out and about in this hairy shit was beyond him, but then that was the difference between him and the animals. They were stupid
animals
.

Alvin chuckled nervously and felt the bravado pump into him. Wild dogs his ass. The snow scraped across the glass of his picture window as he continued staring out into the savage night. This old shack had been in his family for two generations, and if he could convince an online Estonian honey to move in with him, there would be a very good chance the house would be around for a third generation. Wild dogs didn’t bother him, even if they’d offed old Walt Borland.

If they came around, they’d find Alvin Peters’s meat a little tougher to choke down.

He switched on his head lamp and walked into his workout room while the concentrator continued drawing in air, purifying it, and pumping the finished product through ten meters of plastic tubing. The walk-in closet loomed before him. A long stretch of cloth hung from the top, Japanese kanji written upon its length. Alvin opened the heavy door, stepped inside, and studied the wall-to-wall collection of sports gear and sparring equipment cluttering the interior. He’d bought everything over the years, the most recent being the sparring gear about two years ago, custom made and practically costing a testicle, but here it lay, and now was needed. Bending over and ignoring the crackling of his knees, Alvin got out his thick chest pad, shin guards, his old minor hockey gloves and helmet with face cage, protective cup, and a set of custom-made leather bracers for his forearms. He pulled out padded boots for his feet, even though his kicks couldn’t get any higher than a knee, but in a real fight, a solid boot to the knee would put down any attacker. With ritual solemnness, he put everything on, mumbling queer syllables that passed as Japanese in his mind.

Having armored himself thusly, he stepped to a second inner closet he’d built, situated at the back. He undid the padlock and threw open the doors.

Metal shone in the light of his head lamp.

Alvin had actually hoped for a day when he would get to use his toys. Any scenario would have done––a home invasion, couple of rowdy tourists, even the granddaddy of them all, a zombie apocalypse followed by house-to-house looting. The apocalypse he figured wouldn’t happen in his lifetime. Rowdy tourists hadn’t happened either, for that matter, and as for home invasions, most folks knew of his eccentric nature and stayed clear of his property. Including the paperboy. The little bulbous shit.

He ran his hands over a set of
kamas
, single-bladed weapons resembling the forelegs of a praying mantis, or whacked-out gardening gear. These he stuffed onto his padded person. Star-shaped
shurikens
shined in the lamplight, and he grabbed eight from his collection, their pointed tips wicked sharp. The wooden
tonfa
remained on their hooks, as did the set of nunchucks.

The katana, now, he considered. The weapon’s steel arc shimmed like the prow of a majestic yacht. Deadly sophistication, the katana. Edged poetry. But it wasn’t the right tool for wild dogs.

The broadsword, now…

With narrowed eyes he brought out the fearsome, four-foot length of razor badass pleasure. Fashioned by a dealer out in Regina, Alvin had bought the sick sword online (of course) and worked a respectable edge to the blade. Some of his online SCA friends would’ve called it something utterly lame, like “The Song of Atlantis” or ‘The Wish Blade of the East” or some such noble, elvish sounding shit. None of that nonsense grabbed Alvin. So he christened the weapon ‘Ass Fucker.’ The blade would––when swung with the kind of authority he possessed––fuck up someone’s ass. He even planned on scratching or stamping the very lettering into the metal, just so people wouldn’t forget.

Just beholding the weapon would shrivel up some scrotums. And intimidation was half the battle. Simple but true.

He slipped Ass Fucker into another custom-made sheath and belt and strapped the sword around his waist.
Goddamn
, he felt impressive, and felt like a shot of anything eighty proof. Even that rocket-fuel moonshine he’d picked up from a cousin in King’s Cove sounded good, though he suspected one sip of that diesel blend concoction would permanently blind him.

Still, armed as he was, Alvin felt ready. He played with his air tubes through the face cage, adjusting them as best as he could.

Wild dogs, he thought, and snorted.

Alvin hoped the bloods o’ bitches stopped by.

Flossie Jones sat by the glow of candlelight, listening to the wind cut its teeth on her roof. The larger, battery-operated flashlights she’d bought only a few months ago lay in the kitchen drawer, as backup only. The candles took her back to the days when she was only a girl growing up in this once strong outport community, and the memories of her and her sisters crowding around the wood stove in the kitchen, listening to stories told by her grandmother. Flossie periodically glanced out at the stormy dark, in the direction of the lower road where, long years ago, parades would march by on Christmas Day.